Hauz Kaus

Today I finally got to meet up with my cousin's law school friend! (who I have been in contact with for a while now about all sorts of things concerning being an American in India)

We met up at Hauz Kaus Village, where my friend Margaux and I were dropped off my the auto rickshaw and told by the people we asked to go down a sketchy alley to find the Flip Side Cafe. Margaux, being more adventuresome than I, boldly walked down the dirt alley in the fine Sunday morning sun to find the sign, which led up a sketchy staircase. After following this short but strange route, we emerged into a hip, independent cafe, with all the comfort of a hipster hang out: black and white photos, dark hard wood floors, and bright and clean painted walls. But more exciting than the atmosphere (especially to my french friend) was the menu: crepes. Sweet crepes, savory crepes, and pizza.

Caitlin and I spent some time at the cafe, exploring the nearby ruins of Hauz Khas (pictured below), Dilli Haut (hut? I don't know), and then returned to her house and visited the apartment of a friend. A good day, but I am exhausted now, being out during the hottest time of the day, so instead of writing a better blog post, I'm just going to put up pictures and go to sleep. (see, I wrote a good first paragraph, and then gave up).

Observation - 30 July

When anywhere new, what is often most difficult to adjust to is the way things are done in that new place. In America, for example, lawns are mowed and hedges are trimmed using powerful machinery, which affords their operators time to do the cutting and cleaning up with striking efficiency. In India, hedges are trimmed by hand, lawns cut either with a grass whip or else a push mower without a motor. This means that cuttings are left for a day or two once the work is done, until they are raked and picked up by hand.

In America, we self-organize into orderly and polite lines, and may loudly call out one who breaks the socially imposed laws of the line. In India, the line works to an extent, until one reaches the beginning, where about five people all attempt to serve themselves on top of one another.

Classes here are currently running on tentative schedules, which are subject to change next week. Students don’t know if they have housing in the hostel until they go through three interviews, the last of which happens after school has already started.

Perhaps the most striking difference between America and India is the manner in which we shop. For the first time, I went to Sarojini Market, and was not entirely overwhelmed by the masses of people, stuff, heat, and sounds around me. I went with my friend Moitreyee, and we shopped for cookies, cups, knives, and kurtas. I’ve decided that the kurta/leggings combination is probably the most comfortable outfit I’ve ever worn…well, aside from flannel shirts. 

Mom says I ought to post on the blog rather often, so I will try to spice up each post with some sort of story or pictures.

I went to classes today. They were fun, and over by lunch. My friend Mitchri and I then went to meet up with her boyfriend Karan, and we saw the Smurfs movie in City Walk Mall, which is kind of like a wormhole to the USA. Its big, even by US standards, has hotels in it, clean, air conditioned, and has stores like Levi's, Cinnabon, and the Body Shop.

The henna (Mindhi(?)) on my palm has now turned a deep red brown. While we have four leaf clovers and picking petals off flowers to count "he loves me, he loves me not," Michri says that dark designs mean that my mother-in-law will really like me, and thats why brides get the designs on their hands before getting married. I asked what happens if the design stays light, and apparently that means that your mother-in-law will just tolerate you.

We later met up with Margaux in GK1, where we went to a hookah bar, which Margaux had been craving since she left Paris. I didn't smoke, but I did have yummy Moroccan mint tea and Tennessee bbq chicken wings :)

Margaux and the hookah

Michri

Margaux and Karan

Michri

Michri, Margaux, Me

Michri and Me

Michri, Karan, and Me

Michri

July 28th - in the evening

Though the mornings are hard, by 11:00 today I was feeling much better. I sat for a while under a tree/bamboo circle where it was shady and cool after walking around the grounds (my class being cancelled) and seeing a professor doing yoga there.

There are tons of wild cats on campus, but one became my friend today. I bought my philosophy book at the bookstore (for those of you who are college students, or who pay for textbooks, the equivalent cost was about five dollars for my textbook), and was reading the chapter on yoga philosophy in the garden across from the cafe. There was a cat that looked at me, so I called for it to come over, and it sat next to me while I read.

After classes (well, classes for other people, not me...) I went out to GK (Greater...K....) where we got some henna, and I got a romper. We also ate out at pizza hut, which is a sit down restaurant here.

We then went to singing auditions for the Western Music Society (WMS).

And here are some pictures I took today of the college campus:

And here is a really bad video taken while in an auto-rickshaw in Delhi:

So even starting with a hard morning, I still had a good day. :)

Yesterday was my first day of classes. Right now I'm only going to two during the day, because I am going to do one independent study that we are still working out, and my fourth class is part of a sort-of-minor program that will start in another week or so.

I went first to history, and sat in the classroom for a while. There was one other girl there who was on the phone and then left. I was able to get ahold of my friend XiXi who is in that class, who told me the teacher is on leave, so no class.

I then went to Philosophy, where I was given candy by the students, but told to go to a different philosophy class by the professor. My other philosophy class, Introduction to Indian Philosophy, looks like it will be interesting. The professor is nice, though it is difficult for him to get through an idea without someone interrupting to ask a question. After that class, he gave me the information for the textbook, and said we would work out some time to have a make up class for the introductory classes I've missed. I asked a friend where the class would be tomorrow (as they change rooms often), and she said it would be on the syllabus. Another girl said she would lend me the syllabus, and then walked away. But it doesn't really matter that I don't know where my class is, because I have a meeting during that time today anyway with the International Programs office. So I'll worry about that on Friday I guess...

For the first time since arriving, I ate what, when taken off the bones, my first spoonful of chicken since leaving home.

Friday, I am planning on seeing Cowboys vs. Aliens with my friend Mitchri at citywalk mall, which apparently is humongous. Normally I wouldn't be up for it, but its both familiar and something to do with friends, so I am looking forward to it.

The mornings are the hardest I think. I get up early to meditate and call home, but I also wake up missing home, and worrying about what I have to do during the day (how will I figure this out, I need to go to Delhi to get more passport pictures, I need to get this form from her, did I do this right?). In the morning, only I am awake and there is little to distract me from missing the comforts of home, the simplicity of familiarity. At home, to get passport photos, I would take mom's car, drive five minutes to the Kinkos that I know, it would take ten minutes to print out several photos, and then I would go home, the experience being full of english speaking peoples and clean stores and roads. Here, I need to find out where to get passport photos, how far away is it, enlist a rickshaw driver or auto who doesn't speak much english, negotiate with him, find the place, get the pictures from someone who may or may not speak english, and go through the rickshaw process to go back to campus. Right now, that option is a lot more scary and stressful than at home. And once I get the pictures, I need two other letters, one of which I have, one of which I need a copy of, then get my study abroad coordinator to sign my bank account application, then we hope that they weren't lying when they said I can open account even though I'm from the US, and then I have to figure out how I'm getting money in it, and then finally I can pay for the residence hall.

Lets just hope this all works. Logistically, this place can be overwhelming.

But I've made some friends so they can help me. But I miss home. I still go back and forth throughout various emotions throughout the day. 

Feeling/Events report: 7/26/11

I can't promise I'll keep up writing on this blog near every day, so don't get your hopes up, but for now I am, probably because I'm so excited for the internet, so I get on, and then everyone is either asleep or just waking up or going to bed. (12.5 hr time difference from CA)

Today was a day of what was for me an extreme duality of emotion. I'm generally a pretty even-tempered person, so to start out the morning sad, homesick, and that whole deal, and then to spend the rest of the day in a really good way, excited for my classes, the clubs on campus, the people here, is very odd to me. Its strange to experience such a range of emotion in one day. I almost don't want to say that I was happy, because I wasn't in the morning, but neither can I say I was sad, as I spent most of the day happy.

Today I worked on my course schedule,
Voila:
Philosophy of Religion
History of India 1750-1950
Human Rights, Gender, Justice, and Reconciliation (human rights and conflict studies with gender thrown in there)
Independent Study

My Independent Study is gonna be something to do with Sustainable Development. Its like a thesis, I have a year to do it, so I don't know what exactly the topic will be, give me ideas if you have them! Maybe something about renewable energy in emerging and established economies, or pollution and development, value of preserving open space, not sure what yet. I'll go to my first classes tomorrow. Philosophy and history are five days a week, plus a tutorial when that starts up. The human rights class will be in the evenings starting maybe next week, and they will work on appointing an advisor for my independent study, who I will meet with once a week.

I also had fun today, going with my friend Vrinda to look into singing classes, and this evening I'm going to watch Tootsie (I thought they were saying Tulsi, a movie with Dustin Hoffman, but Dad clarified).

I think since there is kind of a general sort of noise, from the fans, cars, people talking, etc., it actually makes it easier to sing, listen to music, and call home without fear of offending anyone.

So anyway, thats how my day was. 

Snippets of India

Here are some snippets of experiences I've had in India:

In the newspaper there was a story about a pedestrian bridge that was built...sort of...it deposited the pedestrians half way across the street. It cost 20,000,000 rupees, and no one realized they wouldn't be able to finish it until it was halfway built because there was another bridge that would block its completion on the other side.

In Old Delhi, we were taking Rickshaws, and two people had to go on the back, so Margaux and I did, because I thought it would be fun. Three young men on a motorcycle came up behind the rickshaw fast and then slowed just before hitting us on the back, as a sort of tease. Margaux yelled "Fuck!" because, well, it was scary. But they seemed to like that reaction because they kept doing it. One time when they went off an older man now riding behind us explained they were just trying to tease us. Eventually I yelled and they left, because it was well past the point of creepy, though it had only been a few minutes. I think I'll ride in the rickshaw from now on. My friend Vrinda said just to ignore them, unless they touch you, then you can slap or punch them.

The metro is brand new, about a year and a half old, and there are three cars in the front reserved for ladies only. Its great. They are less crowded and the metro is air conditioned.

Vhaya is "older brother" in Hindi. Its used to address basically everyone, the people who work in the mess hall, the rickshaw drivers, store owners.

"Take" a picture = "Click" a picture
Motorcycle = Bike
Graduate school = need to say Post Graduate school, I got asked if I wasn't going to graduate from college if it wasn't graduate school
These aren't very interesting but I'll be on the lookout for more.

The college seems so disorganized, but it apparently works for them. See, when you are in a program, you have no choice of classes, so it doesn't matter what the classes are, just who the teacher is. So the course schedules are cryptic, with only letters and numbers on time slots, and no key. It makes it very difficult for us to choose our classes, but I guess if you don't need to know what they are until you get there it works.

An appropriate answer to the question "Where are you from?" seems to be, Political Science. 

So I had thought that I had written another post documenting what I've done in the past four days, but that seems to have vanished, else saved somewhere strange and I forget the name, so here is what I've been doing since my arrival in India:

Day one:
Arrived at the airport, waited for another girl, Ravneet, an Indian-Australian who is my roommate, and who arrived later than me. It was incredibly hot, sweat just running down my back just sitting down, but I really didn't mind as I had just gotten business class and was very refreshed upon my arrival. Else very tired to the point of being energetic.
Our contact got a car and we went to the hostel. The rooms are tiny tiny tiny, would be small for one person and there are two of us here!

We have a balcony and this is the door to the bathroom, which is a western style, except that there is no wall between the bathroom and the shower...so you can spray down the sink with the shower head :)

We have a kind of tiny suite for us int'l students, Ravneet and I are in one room, XiXi (She She, from Singapore/China) and Margaux (France) are in the room next to us, which connects, and we all share the balcony and bathroom. Thank God for the fans in our room. 

The first day I went with Ravneet and a friend Shuchi to a local market to buy toiletries and bags. I swear Indian markets are everything that you expect them to be. 

Day 2:

Went to CP (Conaught Place - don't know the spelling), which is the major center of Delhi, and a market there, which was even a bigger version of the Lajpat Nagar Market (went the day before), and again, everything that you expect from an Indian Market. 

Day 3:

Went with a friend Vrinda, Shivani, and a girl I really like but for the life of me can't remember her name, to Old Delhi. There we visited a Sikh temple (pronounced "seek"), where we took off our shoes and covered our heads, as well as the Red Fort, a mosque, and climbed a minaret! We also ate some break thing with thin fillings that are basically just for flavor, and come in flavors from potato to lime. Yes, it was street food, so far so good, fully cooked, and I have to get used to it sometime. Plus, it was really good :)

From left to right: Vrinda, Margaux, the girl I really like but can't remember her name, me, XiXi, and Shivani

Foooooood

Old Delhi

Entrance to the Red Fort

The Red Fort

Looking down on the courtyard of the Red Fort from the minaret

Margaux

Yes, it is true. There are cows chilling in the middle of a very busy road. 

Rickshaw

So as for how I'm doing in the first three days, I have been waking up tired, all us international students have been. Its been hard especially because it has been difficult to communicate with family, since calling is so expensive (which isn't to say I haven't done it....sorry Dad....) but I feel like a huge load has been lifted off of me now that I have internet and am working on my classes. I'm going to check out a few tomorrow to see if I like them. So far we are looking at some interesting classes: 

History of India (1750-1950)

Human Rights, Gender and Environment (a polysci course, or Indian Foreign Policy, or a Conflict resolution and International Human rights, gender, human rights law thing that I would also like)

Philosophy of Religion

and something else.....

The classes are for the whole year, and can meet up to five times a week for lecture and then a tutorial! Crazy amount of classes, but they all sound interesting, so I hope the profs are good. 

Anyway, I've been exhausted, overwhelmed, stressed, worried, excited, and amazed. I've enjoyed myself and wanted to take back every decision I've made to get here. 

But this is my general idea of the place. Everyone here is so nice. I'm not saying that they say hi in the hallways, or introduce themselves. I mean they will go out of their way to their inconvenience to help you and hold your hand through everything. To get my data card for the internet, I had one girl who offered to do "market research," and one who took me twice to the store, interpreting and helping me. The friends I've met here really hold your hand, which I appreciate a lot, and are so welcoming to eat with them, sit in their rooms, read their newspapers, listen to their music, teaching us hindi, everything. I can't explain just how "nice" the people are here, because nice just seems like such and empty word when describing their kindness, and they truly seem to find joy helping us. All the other things that are hard: the heat, the disorganization, the bathroom, the food, the dingyness of the hostel (our hallway is called "upper dingy", because its dingy), our tiny room, are all things that even if I resisted, will inevitably become normal in a few weeks. So, I think this will be a good place. That, and there are random cats on campus. 

Leaving

My apologies for the state of this and the next post, they are not at all edited and were written while traveling or exhausted :)

I left from LAX on July 20^th. I made it through most of the family farewells without much sadness, carried through by my excitement for my trip. I had said goodbye to my grandpa, aunt and uncle, brother (who actually gave me a hug that wasn’t like a dead fish!), and my dad, when I turned to my dogs.

Dizzy had known today was the day. Either my attempt at explaining had worked, else he had noticed the luggage in my room and the regular event of spending the last night home in the big bed with mom and the dogs. First thing in the morning, which is usually when I leave, he was my little puppy dog, following me around the yard rather than going exploring on his own.

Having to say goodbye to them I found to be so much harder than the humans with whom I’d already made my farewells. Maybe the excitement was turning to nervousness, maybe as it grew later the trip seemed more immanent, or maybe the dogs were just cute enough to bring me to tears several times throughout the time I had to say goodbye.

We made it to the airport with little problem; we got up on time and easily found a place to park. In the airport, after checking in, things started to get definitively sad. On the verge of tears, my mom and step-dad took me to a sit down restaurant in the terminal, where I spent half my meal crying and holding mom’s hand.

“Its gonna be weird not having you here, Missy.” My mom said, herself starting to cry, the goal of waiting until I had left had gone out the window when I started breaking down.

“We got used to the cat being dead.” David raised.

It became a rather tearful affair, at least on my part, then my mother’s, and then my step-dad’s. But the good part about crying in the international terminal, is that nobody looks at you strangely. They just pretend your face isn’t red and blotchy, and that your breath is not so strained. Had we had more privacy, I could easily have cried much more than I did given a bit more privacy, but we had decided that we ought to move along, as drawing it out would have ensured only more crying and sadness.

I was doing fine at the gate, listening to Harry Potter and watching people, the plane, however, was more difficult. I had a window seat in an aisle of two, and happily sat down next to an Indian woman who had come down on a wheelchair before me. She spoke no English, and my Hindi was soon exhausted after saying “my name is Sedona” (Thank you Ahmed for teaching me that). I am rather certain I conveyed that I’m going to India to study in Delhi, but in the time it took to have this conversation, the plane was still at the gate.

It had grown dark outside when the plane moved away from the gate. I was stuck in a small chair surrounded on three sides by walls or furniture and the fourth by a person with whom I could not communicate. I was leaving. I was not happy about it. I felt lonely, trapped in a box. There is nothing familiar about an airport to hold on to; the lights on the runway mean nothing to me, neither to hangars or terminals, they are all unfamiliar. What I looked at were the cars. The cars on the highway were going home. My parents were in the car just getting home. In a car, I could get home. And I was watching the cars from the plane. The plane where I was in a little dark and lonely box.

All at once it seemed unfair. Some people lead happy lives, living at home, then moving five minutes away with a spouse who was their partner in high school. Some people have that luxury. I am the one who has to leave. They can live their full lives in proximity to their loving parents. I have to go to New Hampshire to grow; I have to go to India to come into myself, and here, on the plane in my dark and lonely box, I am struck for the first time with a twinge of my regret for my decision. At this point getting off the plane would involve a police car, or an ambulance. I look out the dark window as we take off; tears are falling down my turned and stoic face. I know I have to do this, but it seems unfair.

The flight was not bad, once I broke down and took one of the sleeping pills my dad gave me. That knocked me out for 6 of the 10 hours I was in the air. I was able to help the lady who spoke no English order dinner, and who needed some help with opening snacks and putting up the tray table.

The Munich airport is a rather interesting place, well, as far as airports are considered. Most of them don’t have a sex shop. At first I thought it was just lingerie, but no. Full on sex shop in the airport. I bet its duty free.

I was more interested in the many religions prayer and meditation room. It was small, wooden floors with a large wooden tree trunk in the center that went from floor to ceiling. People had written all over it, people’s names with various religious symbols, I love Allah; the trunk was covered but I saw nothing offensive. I didn’t stay long, but long enough to pray for safe travels and take in a moment of peace.

I wandered around the terminal a bit, getting some soup and juice. I considered getting a beer because I could actually order one, which I had never done before, but didn’t care enough, which is probably why I haven’t ordered one yet.

So now I’m just waiting at my gate, rather bored. So I’ll listen to Harry Potter, I think. 

The Ten Day Forcast

In case you were curious:

Friday July 22 (The day I get there)

Scattered thunderstorms possible. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the low 80s.

Saturday July 23

A few thunderstorms possible. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the low 80s.

Sunday July 24

Scattered thunderstorms possible. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.

Monday July 25

A few thunderstorms possible. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.

Tuesday July 26

Scattered thunderstorms possible. Highs in the low 90s and lows in the upper 70s.

Wednesday July 27

A few thunderstorms possible. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 70s.

Thursday July 28

Scattered thunderstorms. Highs in the mid 80s and lows in the upper 70s.

Seems pretty consistent. 

The Sunday Night Blahs

Today, for the first time in a while, I was struck by what my mother affectionately refers to as “the Sunday night blahs.” The Sunday night blahs are those feelings associated with the semi-dread of going back to school or work on Monday morning. They come in varying styles, “the weekend wasn’t long enough,” “I’m not having fun at school,” and “I don't like work,” as well as varying intensities, ranging from being slightly down to tearful despair.

Though it was Monday, I was struck for a while this afternoon and evening with a feeling of the Sunday night blahs. I leave on Wednesday for India, and suddenly, this seems very immanent.

Not only was I suddenly struck by the abruptness of my departure, but also I have a tendency to put on myself responsibility for the feelings of others, somehow considering it my responsibility to keep all those around me whole and happy. This, I continue to find, is near impossible to do, but despite this, something in me continues to put this upon myself. Today though, I was reminded that the opposite is true.

I was in the family room with my mom and step-dad watching house hunters international. During a commercial break, I had told my mom that I had the Sunday night blahs, which had festered today as I was looking at my adorable puppies. I then asked, “You’re not gonna be too sad when I leave?”

My mom, who is both excited to live vicariously through me and also sad to see me go, responded, “I will be happy so long as you are happy. If you’re not happy, then I won’t be happy.”

To which my step-dad added humorously, “and if Mom is happy, then I’m happy. If Mom isn’t happy, then I’m not happy.”

“So,” I said, “I just have to be happy, and then everyone is happy.”

While I think we still have to work on not depending on other people for our happiness, in this situation, we seem to have moved my responsibility for happiness back to only myself (where it belongs), as well as exemplified motherhood and marriage, all in one. 

Having mentioned my puppies, here is the perfect opportunity to include pictures, as no blog of mine would be complete without them. 

Maxwell

Dizzy

Puppies napping on the bed

Four Days Out

There are now four days until the day I leave for India. I have done everything on my lists; I have gotten my visa, bought pepto bismal tabs, ordered rupees, and organized admissions materials. Now I am sitting around, though today, I think, I have some reason. I have been effectively doing nothing for some days now. This is not to say that I haven’t kept myself busy or I haven’t had things to do. I’ve run errands, made muffins, and participated in various family engagements, but these activities, while time consuming, bear no gravity in relation to things like packing to leave for India. Or actually going to India, for that matter.

            But today, I am sitting on the couch. I have the beginnings of a sore throat, the kind that under normal circumstances I would ignore and go about doing everything I wanted to do, perhaps being a little tired at the end of the day. But being four days away from a twenty-four hour plane ride across the world to land in a foreign country to which I have never been, I have considered the immanent physical and emotional turbulence as reason to act more sick than I feel.

            As I don’t actually have to do anything outside of the house, since (weeks ago) I have done everything on my lists, this is relatively easy to do: draw, bother mom, read, bother mom, make neater copies of existing lists, bother mom, drink orange juice.

            I really don’t have anything more to say. Maybe I’ll get back to people who I’ve been meaning to get back to for a while. Or bother mom. 

Terrorist Attacks in Mumbai, July 13

This morning when I finally emerged from my bed, my mother told me that there had been a terrorist attack in Mumbai. Three improvised explosive devices went off in crowded areas of the city as people were coming home from work, around 6:50-7:00pm Indian time. So far 21 people have been confirmed dead and 141 wounded, and with no organization taking credit as of yet. I will continue to update this blog entry as there is more information, but there is a good article on the Times of India.  

From what I've heard on CNN and the Times of India, the police and other law enforcement have done a relatively good job of managing the situation (in 2008 they had apparently faced criticism), though I heard the phone lines and cell phones have been jammed, which I'm sure is scary for many whose family members have been asked to stay in their office buildings. I'm guessing this is a measure taken after learning from 2008 in which the terrorists used their smart phones to evade law enforcement. 

As for how this may effect me, I still plan on leaving for India in a week. New Delhi has been placed on high alert, as have many other cities, but I don't think my travel plans will be effected unless there are more widespread attacks, they target westerners (as in the Mumbai terrorist attacks of 2008 and as far as I can tell these ones haven't explicitly, though they were set off in commercial and financial centers), or India goes on the US State Department's travel advisory list. For now, I'm just trying to send good vibes and love to India and Mumbai especially in the ways that I can. 

Lady Shri Ram College - Bragging Rights

Lady Shri Ram College was recently ranked the top Arts College in India by India Today (which seems oddly akin to USA Today)!

The magazine made some videos of the students and the principal, and they have really made me so impatient to get to India and become part of the LSR community!

I have yet to figure out how to get non-youtube videos to come in so nicely as they did on my last posting, but here are the links so you can see where I'm going to be spending my time next year! I am so psyched!

LSR-Principal Reflects

LSR-Students Speak

From the India Today article online:

What makes LSR a consistent leader? "LSR takes pride in the values it infuses in its students. We teach them that there are more possibilities than limits. This ideology reflects in the number of distinguished alumni we have," says Meenakshi Gopinath, Principal, LSR for the past 23 years. The college has 21 societies and several student exchange programmes that are aimed at creating future women leaders in all spheres. "The curriculum is simply a basic minimum requirement. The more important idea is to push students to excel in all extra-curricular activities and to develop critical thinkers and concerned citizens. Overall personality development is the most important part of education at LSR," says Gopinath. The college is widely recognised for its outreach initiatives and civic engagement. 

Hindu Gods and Happy Holi (What I'm looking forward to)

My mother and I were sitting in our family room before dinner, when I opened my Lonely Planet guide to India for reference.

The situation was this:

A week or so earlier, we had been at the Soul of Yoga's yoga church and had sung a chant naming Ganesh, the Hindu deity of good fortune and the remover of obstacles (who has an elephant head). A pretty cool deity if you ask me. A few days after that, we had watched the movie Outsourced, recommended to me by Aunt Sharon, which is a hilarious movie about a man who goes to India to train his replacement at a call center. In the movie, the American is freaked out by the god Kali, depicted with a smile as she hacks off a head to presumably add to the ones stringed around her neck. His Indian friend explains that Kali is the destroyer, but sometimes destruction can be a good thing; one cycle has to end for another to begin.

“Is Hinduism a polytheistic religion?” my mom asked. I told her I didn’t think so, but we needed to consult the guidebook.

All Hindu deities are regarded as manifestations of Brahman (God). There are three main representations, Brahma (the creator, who is in meditation unless he’s creating the universe), Vishnu (the sustainer), and Shiva (the destroyer, without which creation couldn’t occur. Kali is somehow a combination of Shiva and the divine mother, I’m still unclear on that one).

(Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva)

(Kali)

My favorite is the story of Ganesh (remover of obstacles, bringer of good fortune). Ganesh is the child of another deity Parvati and Shiva the destroyer, but Ganesh didn’t know that Shiva was his father, being born while he was away. When Shiva showed up to see Parvati, Ganesh wouldn’t let him, because his mother was bathing. Shiva lopped off Ganesh’s head, only to find out later that he had lopped off the head of his own son. Feeling rather remorseful, he vowed to replace his son’s head with that of the next animal he came across…which happened to be an elephant. Thus, Ganesh has an elephant head.

(Ganesh, Remover of obstacles)

Further exploration in the guidebook led me to the section on Indian holidays, and to the holiday that I am looking forward to the most: Holi. During Holi, the coming of spring is celebrated with color. By color, we mean everything from smearing a bit of colored powder on someone’s cheek to drenching people buckets of color-dyed water. Here, let me explain:

This is a clip from the movie Outsourced, which I would recommend to anyone. This is what I'm looking forward to. 

And for some facts...

I have decided that it is necessary to create a rather boring post with a few facts I collected off of Wikipedia about India. 

Name: Republic of India

Motto: “Satyameva Jayate” (Truth Alone Triumphs)

Capital: New Delhi

Largest City: Mumbai

Languages: Hindi, English, with over 20 officially recognized regionally, and thousands of other mutually unintelligible languages

Area: 1,269,219 square miles (almost five times the size of Texas, for those who were wondering)

Population: Second in the world (guess who is first…)

Drives on the left (silly English)

Instead of giving you an accurate and boring map, I decided to draw my own, with all the relevant geographical information.  

I think that covers all the bases. 

Plug Converters

I leave for India on July 20^th, a little over two weeks from today. Unable to contain myself any longer, I have set to begin accumulating those things on my shopping lists, which are organized by store and subdivided by section of the specified store, having been written at least two weeks ago. In addition to small containers for shampoo and conditioner, pocket packs of Kleenex and tampons, I also needed plug converters.

Looking at the aisle of plug adapters in the electronics store stirred a part of me generally awoken by discussions on the viability of the “European identity” in the current economic situation, or the various MAD and NUTs positions on the utility of nuclear weapons.

Regarding systems of measurement, the world has come to general consensus, disregarding non-scientific Americans, on the metric system. Electrical systems on the other hand, seem to resemble more of a colonized world achieved not by history, but by a long game of Risk.

I find it best to explain with diagrams. The following is a map explaining where different plug systems can be used, based on the information found on the packaging of my own converter (which is good for India, Hong Kong, and only parts of South Africa).

For comparison:

My search for similarities with the colonized world of 1895 was met with confusion. At least according to this map I got from a nonacademic source on Google image search, The Dutch, who controlled South Africa and the western coast of India, had no claim to Hong Kong.  The Spanish too, seem to have given up on electrically influencing any of their colonies.

I was forced to create a more plausible story to explain why China has two possible plug options, Hong Kong has another two, some shared with England, some with Australia, and some with South Africa, who each do not share with each other.

Here is the story I have come up with: 
Early electrical engineers looked for a way to compare their newly designed electrical systems. Being competitive, they created real-life electrical Risk. 

The green team holed up in Australia and the surrounding islands, building their forces. The yellow player, who was not too good at Risk started in Africa, managing to scatter his pieces around the area but often unable to hold onto any country for a substantial period of time. He was saved though, by the powerful forces of the blue team of the Americas and the silent but strong green team in Australia fighting over Chinese territory and duking it out there rather than trying to cross the Himalayas. The dark blue player managed to hold onto Europe, but had to constantly defend itself against its open borders, and did not travel far. The red team was a miserable player with bad luck.

While my imagination has now rendered the electrical situation of the world perfectly plausible, you might realize that Italy and Israel remain left out of my story. This information is neatly filled in by a cultural study, the likes of which are regularly undertaken by international relations students to understand deep seated or longstanding conflicts. Italy and Israel have their own systems because they like to be special, and to make of a bit of a mess of things.