The End

Mom's Final Thoughts

When I told people I was going to India, the most common reaction was something like, “Oh, I have no desire to go to India”.  On one level I understood the reaction, it isn’t as beautiful as Switzerland or as romantic as Italy or France but I believe the more places you visit the more you understand your world, appreciate differences in peoples and cultures, and discover about yourself.  Many people also remarked that you will either love India or hate it.  I found you could both love and hate India in the span of just hours but mainly I side with loving it (especially now that I’m home).  Life in India can be intense.  There is extreme poverty, harsh climate, congested traffic, awful pollution, overcrowded cities, and for me, most difficult, many stray dogs.  But India has its own unique beauty as well.  There is a rich history, incredible food, beautifully colorful garments, magnificent mountains, organized chaos, and many kind and helpful people.  There are many places in the world where you could look out a window and it could be anywhere but in India when you look out a window, it is clear you are in India.  After being there only two weeks, I am so impressed with Sedona’s choice to live there for 9 months.  I would have never been able to do it.  I visited her college and while the campus had some beautiful gardens and was lovely on the outside, the dorms where the girls lived were quite dismal.  The paint was peeling from the walls, the floors looked old and dirty, and through every window you looked out into a courtyard where the girls strung their clothes to dry.  Sedona had a makeshift broom she used to sweep out her room everyday as dust was everywhere.  Her bunk bed looked like something you’d see in a U.S. prison, only a few inches thick and the walls were bare and dirty.  And then there was the bathroom…let’s just say it’s a good thing she’s not a high maintenance woman.  It’s really difficult to express just how different everything in India is.  When Sedona says she had to change everything about how she lived, she’s not exaggerating.  I cannot express how impressed I am with my daughter.  She demonstrated such courage, patience, curiosity, appreciation, openness, adaptability, and an adventurous spirit.  She endured a serious bout with food poisoning that landed her in a foreign hospital, lost a crown that forced her to find a foreign dentist, traveled both alone and with dear friends all over India and Nepal, spent time in an ashram, learned to haggle with the finest auto rickshaw drivers, lived the whole time without a washing machine or dryer, got a job, met some amazing people, and learned how it felt to be a minority.  I think it’s appropriate she turned 21 during her stay in India because this experience certainly contributed to her maturity.  Through her experiences she has gained even more grace, confidence, and peace of mind.  She has accomplished something many of us, including myself, would never have had the courage or confidence to even attempt.  I’m sure this is just the beginning of new and exciting adventures still to come.

Last Day in India

In twelve hours, I will be on a plane to the United States. However, as it is 4 in the afternoon, it seems like much shorter a time even than that. I've been away for so long that it was hard to imagine being home until my mother got here, and I'm sorry for her that an opportunity to explore a new place has been sprinkled with my excitement at the idea of going home.

Some travelers come through India and fall in love with the rich culture and ethnic lifestyle. Honestly I have not. I love all the people who I have become close with in my stay here, but as for the country or the culture I have no strong feelings any which way.

My study abroad is I guess in a lot of ways different from most. I spent a year living in a building which horrified my mother, having the aesthetic of a prison and less than hygienic cleanliness. Character building. I half the time was confronted with a language I never learned. My environment was loud, dangerous, and in almost every other aspect foreign. The food was different, the mannerisms, the activities.

But I think maybe the most forcefully different part of my study abroad compared to a lot of others has to do with all the different ways in which I had to change. I had to change so much of what generally defines us. I had to consciously change the way I spoke, my mannerisms, my reactions, the clothes I wore, the things I cared about, my sleeping schedule, and the activities in which I participated. Its gradual, its traumatic, its perhaps liberating, its unconscious, and its consciously decided, all in one. Its a process and a decision, and the outcome is unknown.

Its hard to give a culminating blog post on my last day in India. Likely I will notice effects, changes, and everything positive and negative for the next few years. But in an effort to sum - most people I talk to say I'm more confident and relaxed. I find I'm more willing to ask for help and show my frustration more quickly. When I read about Pakistan testing a middle range ballistic missile, I know that most of the lay Indians I meet don't blame them. I know that when I hear about Westerners going over to help small villages in the Himalayas rebuild their homes after floods, that these people do really appreciate it. When I hear talk about how India is a rising superpower, I only think about how stunned I am that it has stayed together for as long as it has, and that it operates with any kind of slight trajectory. I realize the power and importance of technology, which I used nearly every day of my stay to communicate with the people I love.

My experience is only vast, in what living a year in India has done to me, and what I've done to me in order to live in India. Going back, I can't anticipate what profound life changes would be typical of such an experience. There will still be daily challenges of the same and different types. Some may seem more manageable, but some will still be altogether new. I may be able to compare and contrast experiences and reactions from Sedona before and after living in India, but I don't expect to, and I am not planning on trying to. 

Trip to Pangong Tso Lake

If you haven’t read the post on our trip to Agra, please go back and read that now. The trip to Agra and the trip to Pangong Tso lake are about equal in time, but not experience.

If you are going to Ladakh, you must go to Pangong Tso lake, so says every single person to which Sedona mentioned my trip. Pangong Tso Lake is an impressive 83 miles long divided between Chinese and Indian territory, which rests at 14,500 feet. This whole area of India is heavily militarized due to problems with Pakistan and Kashmir, as well as border disputes with China on the other side. This meant that we frequently passed small military posts and needed several permits and our passports with us. When Sedona was setting up the itinerary via email, the hotel manager inquired as to our nationality, as these permits are not issued to the Chinese, which he suspected as my last name is Chinn.

On our third day, we decided to make the journey to Pangong Lake, about 85 miles from Leh where we are staying, via our driver and jeep. We were anticipating a quiet, uneventful, and scenic drive. We left about 7:00am along nicely paved and little used roads.

From this point onwards, we encountered three more categories of road. These became progressively narrower, windier, and bumpier. After the paved area, the road turned to dirt and gravel, winding along mountainsides with cliffs dropping off and few guard rails, which is what Sedona had been anticipating, and had not shared with her mother. Beyond that, we encountered roads of snow and ice as we climbed in altitude. On these roads, conscious effort and abdominal strength needed to be maintained in order to remain upright and seated. This became increasingly difficult as we climbed from 11,000 feet (in Leh) to 17,500 feet, the altitude of Chang-la pass, the second highest motorable road in the world. As the oxygen levels rapidly decreased, the energy required to turn our heads and have a conversation was soon considered extraneous. At the top of Chang-la pass, as Sedona suffered a headache Andrea suffered a disability to walk in a strait line, we were served tea by the Indian army, who seemed appreciative of the five minutes of company.

Coming down the other side of the pass, we next encountered grey sand dunes, which surprisingly and unfortunately were perhaps less comfortable to snowy roads. However we did see yaks, goats, and a marmot. By this point we were already exhausted, with headaches from the altitude changes and carsick from the winding and bumpy roads, as well as in desperate need of a bathroom.

Finally, we arrived at the lake. It was frozen. There were a few birds. Most of the huge length of it was tucked behind mountains. When Sedona explained, laughing hysterically out of exhausted resignation, that we had reached our destination, Andrea, hungry, tired, nauseous, head aching, and needing a bathroom, collapsed onto a rock and announced if she had the strength, she would kill her daughter. Her next thought was that it may be more effective to end her own life in the freezing water. Finally she concluded it would be most fair to force Sedona to make the return trip.

We quickly ate lunch, took a few pictures, were again served tea by the Indian army (possibly the best chai we have had) and told our driver to take us back. We were there for all of half an hour. Already weary from the five hours coming, we mentally prepared for another five hours of climbing, winding, bumping, and jostling.

Despite feeling awful, things had gone relatively well until we got up into the snow. Soon Andrea turned to a nauseous Sedona and asked if she felt like she would throw up and needed to stop. Sedona responded with “not yet, I need to wait until we get to Chang-la pass, that way I can say I’ve thrown up at 17,500 feet.” We both began to laugh uncontrollably. The signs of oxygen deprivation had most definitely begun.

As we winded further up the mountain, we saw ahead a couple of trucks. Andrea thought they were ploughing the roads for us, as it had started to lightly snow. However, as we approached, we realized they were stopped. Our driver left us to see what was the matter. He must have found out, but did not speak enough English to communicate this to us. Meanwhile, Sedona had decided to go to sleep in the back seat of the jeep. Andrea used all of her remaining energies to remain conscious and plan for the inevitable night we were going to spend on the mountain in the jeep.

As we waited longer, the cars lined up behind us, and wind started to pick up, the situation became concerning to Andrea (Sedona was still passed out in the back seat). Unable to find anyone in the caravan of vehicles who spoke English well enough to explain our predicament, Andrea was comforted by the fact that she was accompanied by a daughter with Wilderness First Responder training. However, this relief was dashed quickly as the lack of oxygen rendered Sedona incapable of remembering the symptoms for altitude sickness (these were remembered when no longer needed about four thousand feet lower). As we waited Andrea found it amusing that it could all end in the Indian Himalayas of all places in the world.

What had happened is that a truck was stuck in the snow. It took probably an hour to get it out, but after that it was smooth, well, sort of, sailing back to Leh. As we travelled the remote mountain road, we came upon a scruffy dog trotting up the road with a fresh cow’s leg in its mouth. Not far behind came another, less fortunate dog, without any cow appendages, hoping the first would share.

Our only explanation of all the recommendations for this trip is that there is a secret pact, in which, having suffered the arduous journey to the anticlimactic lake, one must encourage others to make the same trip and suffer the same disappointment and trauma. We however have violated this pact by sharing our experience.

Airports in India

After a twelve-hour day of travels to the Taj Mahal the alarm rang at 5:30am and we were off to the airport by 6:00 for our flight to Ladakh.

Fortunately, I am traveling with Sedona who has travelled within India before, as I wouldn’t have known to tag my carry-on items. This is important when going through security.

We made our way to security where we were the redundancy begins. After placing ones belongings in a tray, you receive a paddle with a matching number to the one in your tray, in order to make sure the correct valuables end up with the correct person. Next, it is important to get into the appropriate line, male or female. The women go behind a glass box and curtain to get frisked, while the men are frisked publically. This line, despite there being few people, seemed to take a very long time. Finally it was my turn to go behind the curtain, and I realized what was taking so long. After being frisked, the security lady asked me about my trip to India, and we chatted some time about my trip to the Taj Mahal. She informed me that she was planning a trip there soon.

We now collected our carry-on luggage, which each now had a stamp on the tag, which would be important later, as it would be checked yet again. Our boarding passes also now carried a stamp, which would be checked another three times.

It was a one-hour flight to Leh, where the terrain changed dramatically. In no time we were flying over huge pristine Himalayan mountains. We weren’t in Delhi anymore. The landscape of Ladakh is barren but for a few leafless trees and snow capped mountains. Without those mountains it almost looks like the Sahara Desert. As we made our way to the hotel, the one distinction we noticed between Delhi and Ladakh is that the stray dogs are much furrier. Important to note.

We arrived at the hotel, had tea, felt quite good and relaxed despite the altitude (11,000 feet), feeling the need to whisper as the silence is deafening compared to Delhi and we didn’t want to disturb it. This until an Indian couple comes to tea and commenced to smoke, talk loudly on their cell phones, and take pictures.

We were encouraged to go rest in our room for a bit, until we would go do some local sightseeing. Not particularly feeling the need, we obliged. However we didn’t realize we had been sprinkled with fairy dust, which took its effects immediately upon becoming horizontal. We promptly passed out for six hours and were awoken only for lunch, which we declined for more sleep. A few hours later, we were awoken again for our local sightseeing. Upon seeing we had still been sleeping, the manager encouraged us to go back to sleep, which we did. Finally, we awoke at 7:00pm and noticed it was getting darker, and decided since we were out of water, we ought to make the effort, for the first time today, of getting out of bed.

One final important note is that high altitude has the effect of being put under laughing gas. The thin air results in intense bouts of the giggles between naps. 

The Road To Agra

The Taj Mahal is a five-hour drive from Delhi. We went via private car. The driver picked us up at 7:30am. I anticipated the usual congestion getting out of Delhi, and assumed once out of Delhi we would get on a freeway and easily make our way to Agra.

The reality was four lane road, two in each direction, which was shared with pedestrians, bicyclists, bicycle drawn carts, horse drawn carts, motorcycles with five people and young children, auto-rickshaws, farm equipment, and my favorite, the over burdened trucks that looked exactly like muffin tops a good twenty feet tall at least. On first observation you would think that these vehicles are not safe to drive – and you would be right. We saw at least two turned over on our journey, spilling out into the road. They could be filled with anything from straw, to aluminum cans, plastic bottles, to used toilet paper rolls.

Just when you get comfortable with no one paying any attention to the lanes, you notice traffic coming towards you in the wrong direction. The horn is the primary form of communication, taking the place of either turn signal, mirrors, and what we might consider mandatory visual checks. My plan was to sleep at least part of the five-hour journey on the way to Agra, but I was in a perpetual state of horrified fascination and couldn’t close my eyes long enough to rest (Sedona was fast asleep).

At one point our driver explained in broken English, that he was going to leave us for a moment, and we were not to open the doors or windows, and to remain in the car. I didn’t think much of that until, as soon as he walked away, a parade of oddities encircled the car. Everything from men with jewelry banging at the window, monkeys on leashes, to a man with a pet cobra (this is when Sedona started cowering and hiding) swarmed our car in the five minutes before our driver returned.

Traffic seemed to flow fairly well until the occasional accident or dead horse.

The Taj Mahal is a tomb built by a Mughal king for his favorite wife. It stands alone in its majestic beauty surrounded by poverty, desolation, and the general filth of Agra. All the detail to the building is done with inlays of semi-precious stones. Our tour guide said that in building it, they started out giants and became jewelers. The intention was to build a second mirror image in black on the other side of the river for the king’s tomb. However, his sons decided that he had lived too long and held him in house arrest until his death in the Agra fort. 

How was India? part 4

Yesterday it stormed in Delhi. I loved it. There was wind and rain and finally it was cool. Rain in Delhi is one of my favorite things. It doesn’t ever sprinkle, it rains hard for an hour or so, sometimes longer, and takes a break. I believe there is always an occasion for rain because I never have found it so cold as to not appreciate the ten-degree difference the rain makes. Yes, it will become humid soon, but for the time being, especially as it’s been in the 90s, I’m happy.

This leads us to our fourth installment of my ‘How was India?’ series: My favorite things.

While there are plenty of beautiful places in India, and this one relatively small, touristy, and no more than a week’s worth of things to do, the place I remember most fondly is Darjeeling. Perhaps it was because it was the first place I was truly traveling on my own, and my every move was not planned. Maybe it is because the people there were so kind and welcoming, stopping me to ask where I was going, and pointing me in the right direction. At the same time they left you well alone, no staring, no hassling, and bartering took about ten seconds to reach an acceptable price. In general, it is a very polite place. Darjeeling is part of a section of West Bengal referred to as Gorkhaland (Gorkhas are from Nepal actually) who want to form a new state under India separate from West Bengal. At times, this struggle has been violent. The differences between Gorkhaland and West Bengal are perceptible to all your five senses. Cultural differences and neglected needs of the region by the state government are, as I understand it, the reasons for desiring the foundation of a new state.

My favorite street food is momos, a Tibetan dim sum, which litter most marketplaces.

My favorite Indian food is channa bathura. Channa is chickpeas, and it's a kind of gravy or soupy dish, eaten with bathura, deep fried flat bread that is big and puffy. Its inevitable you will eat too much of this heavy food and feel sick.

I have two places that are my favorite in Delhi, and they are so, perhaps unfortunately, because they are more peaceful than the rest of Delhi. The first is Hauz Khas Village, built around Mughal ruins, has some of the best restaurants in south Delhi. The second is N block market in GK1, which is less than five minutes on a bicycle rickshaw from my college. Smack-dab in the middle of some of the most expensive real estate in Delhi, it is quiet, has a little green patch, nice shops, and a café that, while lacking internet or plugs, is perfectly accommodating if you’d like to sit for three hours and only order a coffee while listening to their jazz music. 

How was India? - part 3

As now I've sufficiently upset a few friends and family, I better talk about nice people.

I have met some very nice people. Certainly many of my friends are exceptionally nice, I don't know why I would hang out with them otherwise. I once was staying at a friend's house for twenty-four hours, moving through Delhi on my way to Darjeeling, and her mom woke up at three in the morning to see me off to the cab (and, as it was, give the driver directions in hindi).

One auto driver I met I negotiated for sixty rupees to take me back to college. He was a chatty one, asking where I was from, if I would have a love marriage or arranged marriage, how old I was, if I was Christian, etc. Finally when we got back to college, he only charged me fifty rupees.

(click "read more" for complete blog post)

How was India? - part 2

Part 2 of my attempt to sum up a few aspects of India I feel like talking about! Sexual Harassment


I don't know the best way to talk about this, so I'm just going to write a few stories. I've never had any serious problem with sexual harassment in India. I haven't been followed, or felt in danger. However I have plenty of times felt like the line of rudeness and creepiness has been crossed and behavior has entered into a violation of my private space. As a Westerner in Indian society, my private space extends a bit further than those around me, but regardless, any sexual harassment, or "eve-teasing" of this sort crosses lines in Indian society as well.

I'm white. I know that may be a bit more rare in India, but does that mean it is acceptable behavior for high-school/college aged young men traveling with their parents in the seats in front of me on a plane from Cochin to Delhi are entitled to hold up their iPhones and (discreetly? not really) take pictures of me? I don't think so. I'm a bit more understanding of poorer Indians who don't have a direct connection with Western culture being fascinated by brown hair, but from Indians wearing American Eagle? less so.

(click "read more" for complete blog post)

How was India? - part 1

When I get back to the US, and get back to all my friends, family, and dogs, the question I most expect to be asked is: How was India? (okay, maybe not from the dogs...) In anticipating that, I'm attempting, fruitlessly, to formulate my answer. The best I'm coming up with is "vast." There is so much beauty, and so much horror. So much kindness, and so much inhumanity. To be exposed to that for a year, is simply vast in your mind, there is no connection, no center point, just a vast cloud of everything that is my experience in India.

However thats not to say I'm incapable of describing, to a degree, what I've learned, how I've changed, what I've liked, what I've disliked, what I'd do over again, and what I appreciate. I do though believe myself incapable of answering all these sufficiently. But as the blog is drawing to a close in a week to three weeks (depending on my discipline and my mom's reminders to blog once she is here), I will try to write a few posts, somewhat articulately, about some aspects of my experience in India.

This is the first: Bad things I've learned

(click "read more" for complete blog post)

Jaipur

I went to Jaipur. I don't know if I'll be able to upload the few pictures I took because my camera finally died. Well, I can try to get the lens fixed...again...but anyways.

I went shopping in Jaipur. I got leather slippers, blue pottery, puppets, and dangly birds. I'm impressed that I was able to do this much because it was sunny and 105 degrees.

Predictably, I had a sore throat and my friend had a headache the next day, and we both slept and rested a fair deal.

Today I jumped onto the bus in Jaipur and drove about three hours as I watched the driver get a very good workout in his left arm as shifting required great amounts of physical strength. Finally, it failed, and the bus would no longer go into gear. All the men on the bus who obviously worked desk jobs tried their hand, as though trying to be the one to pull the sword from the stone, despite never having driven a bus. They were instead recruited to push the bus off to the side, as us ladies continued to sit in the air conditioning.

They sent another bus in a short amount of time, which was not as nice, and judging by the matchsticks and rolled leaves someone had recently been smoking there. In all of this I was not much concerned, which I find as surprising, because before I would have been all a fluster and a twitter. Instead, I didn't much care.

As we were getting into south delhi, and drove past the embassies, consulates, and well kept buildings that occupy the area around Khan Market, I had to pee the worst I ever had in my recent memory. I was deciding whether 'restroom,' 'loo,' or 'toilet' would be most effective when asking directions (toilet).

Once relieved I paid an auto driver much too much to take me back to school because he was nice other than charging me too much. 

Problem Solving

Problem: There is a great deal of water spilling out into the hallway from the hall bathroom.

Solution: Make a small wall of dirt to contain the water to the bathroom.

The problem persists.

Solution: Dig up the pipes (conveniently located in said hallway). Take them out, replace them, and rebury them.

Discovery: My dorm has no foundation, only dirt. 

What my friends want from India

I now have 16 days until my mom comes! (not that I'm counting) and have starting to sift through what books I will be taking home, what will be donated, etc. Another major component of this process is getting the last gifts, shopping, and requested items to bring back to the US.

And for this, my friends have thoroughly amused me.

The first request was for a Bollywood rendition of Aladdin, which has not been released in the United States. My friend appropriately attached the link to my facebook wall, so that I would be clear.

My conversation with my brother was perhaps more amusing. 

Brother: What's cheap in India and expensive here?

Me: Ummm....I can get bootleg dvds for two bucks....Prescription drugs? 

Brother: I'll think about what I need. Oxy cotin?

Me: Well as a rule I generally don't trust Indian drugs...How about a painted elephant? 

Brother: Exotic animals are good if you can bring any back

One other friend appropriately requested street Mughal art prints. However when I responded that I would likely put more effort into that than oxy cotton or exotic animals, the conversation went as such:

Friend: Actually, go into a pharmacy...take someone who is Hindi/is respectful and ask for 4 patay *leaves*

Me: Which is?

Friend: 4 patthay of oxy...I think it should work. GSK is huge there so they probably have it cheap. Oh Lord, I'm a terrible person.

I love my friends. 

____

After several people have read this I realize the need to make the following notes:

*Oxy cotin is not spelled like the fabric -- something I have now learned

*No, I'm not actually bringing anyone drugs. 

*My brother has added a psychedelic ganesha to his wish list

• • 
    

Looking to the end

Its getting to be about that time that I'm looking towards the end. If I haven't already been, which I have. With three weeks left in school now, and not even three full weeks at that, things are quickly winding down. I'm crossing off work on my to do lists without adding more. I'm making my last travel arrangements for the year in India. And I'm thinking about what it will be like to be home.

There are many things I'm sure I will just bask in: cleanliness, the lack of dust, quiet, and even though its summer in California, cooler temperatures. I'm excited to cook, and run, and hang out with the family. I am particularly excited to see my dog Dizzy's reaction to seeing me, his excitement last time I came home was displayed by running throughout the house howling and lunging at me to get me to play.

I am also looking forward to wearing different clothes. I've never gone through any sort of rebellious phase, I went to a boarding school I loved and which was pretty liberal, so I've had dreads and run around the woods late at night, but as opposed to most places this wasn't considered anything out of the norm. And if I was to get caught doing anything too bad, I jeopardized my second home, which was out of the question. Rather different than a lot of the people I've known at my Catholic college who grow up in strict environments and go crazy at their first draught of freedom. But I may do just that. India has been my strict environment, in a lot of ways, including behavior and speech, but particularly in regards to clothes. I am very much looking forward to embracing my Californian culture and hanging out in my swim suit in public and not attracting sleazy looks.

I'm also anticipating every single person asking me, 'How was India?!" I really don't know if I'll ever be able to answer that question. The best I can come up with I found in a book "Holy Cow!" by Sarah Macdonald, where she writes:

"I'm beginning to think it's pointless to try [to figure out India]. India is beyond statement, for anything you say, the opposite is also true. It's rich and poor, spiritual and material, cruel and kind, angry but peaceful, ugly and beautiful, smart but stupid. Its all the extremes. India defies understanding..."

Before traveling to India, I had all the ideas about how it would be interesting to observe a rising superpower, etc...now I am simply confounded as to how the country still exists, let alone is a powerful actor in the international system. And I'm sure that idea too will change.

Western clothing

Its getting hotter, and I've basically stopped wearing jeans. Instead I'm more often in a salwar and kurta, which has some other name I'd type wrong. Basically, baggy drawstring pants and a loose cotton dress with slits from hip to knee on the side. Despite being long sleeve, the looseness does a fine job of keeping you relatively cool, though I still would argue that shorts and a tank top would be more appropriate.

This outfit, or a sari, is classically Indian. In India, there are essentially two styles of dress, Indian or western. Indian comprises these two styles of outfits. Western comprises anything else.

When I say western, I emphasize that it means 'not Indian,' it does not mean, 'someone in the West would wear this.' Puffy ruffled sleeves have been all the hype this year, as have shirts that look vaguely similar to my pink and geometric minnie mouse bathing suit I wore when I was five. Only these shirts often have big plastic buttons that connect nothing as decoration. While some girls seem perfectly at ease with and capable of creating perfectly acceptable American youth outfits, some just seem unable to let go of ruffled dresses and clashing patterns that even I wouldn't put together (and ask my mom, matching is not my strong suit).

In addition, and can bring me great amusement some days, is that one-colored outfits are entirely acceptable. All white, yellow, orange, red, well, I've probably seen them all. I bought a red kurta and was looking for a pair of churridars (drawstring skinny pants that crumple at the ankles) to go with them, and the lady insisted I buy red to match, arguing against any beige or brown. I tried, but I just can't wear that much of one color, and went back for brown.

In other news, despite my evaporation of motivation to do any work whatsoever, I need to write about forty pages in the next week (no big deal), because all my work is due by about the fifth. Another nearing deadline which marks for me, not the amount of work I have to do, but the nearness of the end of this semester, the coming of my mother, and going home. 

eating

Most of my lunches and dinners consist of three basic components:
Daal - some kind of soupy bean dish
Sabzi - vegetables of various kinds
Rice/Chapati - Rice=duh; Chapati=a kind of flatbread, may be different depending on the daal or daal-like dish

People eat all sorts of different ways. Some only eat with Chapati, some only with rice, and some both.

Some people eat their daal like soup.
Some people mix rice and daal and make soup.
Some people eat daal with chapati.
Some people pour daal over rice and eat it with a fork, spoon, or with their hands.
Some people mix sabzi with their rice and daal.
Some people eat their sabzi separately with the chapati.
Some people eat everything all together.
Some people eat one thing, get up for another, get up for another.

So I try to ask rules for manners, and most commonly I get: there aren't any. But thats not really true, its just that nobody will tell me. The best I've gotten, is that when you eat with your hands (which is exceptionally fun coming from a society that has told me my whole life not to), try not to get your pinky finger too dirty.

Yea, thats the best I've got. But Mom, when you make chicken and rice and spinach and gravy - Don't be surprised to see me start eating with my hands. Its way too much fun not to. 

Autowalas

I've taken an auto-rickshaw nearly every day that I've been in India. I generally enjoy the time. But I've had a variety of experiences. I thoroughly enjoy getting away for a few hours, zooming along in the little tuk-tuk around Delhi. I have never gotten used to homeless people begging at notoriously long stoplights, occasionally refusing to leave my side and pulling on my clothes.

As for the drivers, I've also had a range of experiences. I've had a few try to charge me 200 for a 50 rupee ride, or get lost and want me to pay for it, or tell me they don't have change and I'll just have to pay twice as much. However, despite once or twice having to call a hindi-speaking friend and hand over the phone, I've never once not gotten to where I was going.

I've also had some incredibly nice rickshaw drivers. Some are just brimming with happiness, and to keep that all day when all they do is drive around Delhi - thats impressive. I've had some very sweet, some tell the beggars I'm not going to buy things from them, one even charged me less after getting to where I was going. In addition, sometimes I find drivers keen to practice their english. Most are curious as to where I'm from, how long I've been in India, and if I speak hindi. My favorite questions however have been, "Would you have a love-marriage or an arranged marriage?" and "Are you a Christian?" 

Pictures from Dharamsala - the pretty ones

Big prayer wheels outside the temple 

Hailstorm for fifteen minutes

Dogs and cows chillin' at the dumpster

Solidarity protest

Solidarity protest

Walking to Bagsu

Walking to Bagsu

Painting outside the library of works and archives

Snow lion outside the temple where the state oracle lives

mountains in the distance

Pictures from Dharamsala - of the political persuasion

In the temple complex, the child's whereabouts are unknown, making him the youngest political prisoner

The national martyrs' monument, which is the first thing seen when entering the temple complex

A picture from the museum of tibetan children in communist uniform

sculpture in the museum 

solidarity march for self-immolations

the parliament in exile, not so grand

salvaged ancient texts are housed here

More of the secretariat in exile 

Ministry of foreign affairs, shares its office with another ministry upstairs

signs put up all over town

Bo sha lan?

Bo sha lan? Bo sha lan? I was walking with the two women I met in Dharamsala to drop one off at the bus station. We were laden with bags and walking a bit past the auto rickshaw stand on Holi. But it was Dharamsala, so as everyone was Buddhist, there wasn't much paint throwing about.

Bo sha lan? Five or so men were asking. My friend who is exceptionally nice tried to figure out what they were saying, to no avail, their accent was too thick. I assumed they were selling something and, a result of seven months in Delhi, said 'no' without looking and kept walking, my gaze strait. Finally as it was repeated over and over I finally got it: One night stand? Pleeease pleeaase one night stand with me? My friend laughed imagining if one of us just said, 'sure, okay.'

My friend who was leaving traveled in India all last year, and has said that it is normal in a lot of areas that there is no sex before marriage, so the men watch porn, and then assume western women to be down for that. I'm not entirely sure how they maintain this assumption when (I'm guessing) no woman ever reciprocates their pleas for one night stands. To me this is kind of like watching sci fi and then expecting cars to be able to fly. And if I were to make assumptions from the bollywood movie I saw on the bus up to Dharamsala, I'd have to imagine all Indian women to be high maintenance gold diggers. I find it very odd. 

The Dalai Lama

Yesterday and today I got to see the Dalai Lama. Yesterday, my friends and I woke up at four forty-five and carried our blankets down the steep stairs near our hotel that lead to the temple complex. We were searched, quite thoroughly (we had to leave our cameras and phones at the hotel), before being admitted into the temple area. The first time I saw him, it was at a prayer for his long life. All the Tibetans were in their traditional finest, which was great to see.

Today, we allowed ourselves to sleep in a bit until five fifteen, before making our way to a talk he was giving. We all had little pocket radios with the translation of his talk, and the translator would often laugh at the jokes before translating them or get distracted, one time admitting he had missed it and had to get it from a fellow translator). The talk was a basic introduction to Buddhism, though with the translation and the uncomfortable squished sitting on the cement ground often went over my head. It was still pretty cool.

We made our way downhill to the secretariat of the government in exile, a collection of standard Indian style (questionable maintenance but habitable and nicely painted signs) and to the library where the salvaged ancient texts were stored and studied. I was happy to finally indulge in my aspiration to learn tibetan by picking up textbooks and audio cds.

Walking around in a Tibetan community, specifically so close to the government in exile, truly uncovers the futility of ideas of coercive assimilation. Whatever the situation in Tibet, Tibetans continue to practice their language, culture, and tradition with increased fervor. Walking into the temple complex the first thing to see is a huge monument to Tibetan martyrs. There are solidarity marches and solidarity hunger protests for the victims of Chinese shootings and self-immolators. Patriotism, at least as I view it, is reactionary and powerful, even among youths born in exile, though who interact daily with those who have made the life-risking journey into India.

I have one more day before I return to the heat, the homework, and the short amount of time that await me in Delhi until my mom comes and I finish school. Moods come and go, but right now I'm just getting tired and am ready to go home. The overwhelming longing for a washing machine has worn off. I've bought everything I want to give people, and everything I want for myself. And now its getting close to that time. But I'm sure to find more things to do, more things to see, and experience, before my time is up.

Me and the girls I've been hanging out with

Some patriotic fliers on the street corner

Dharamsala - incredible day

So I don't really know where to start for this day. The plan, filled with typical tourist kind of things (seeing some tibetan medicine, tibetan astrology) went out the window pretty early in the morning. Even the visit to the Tibetan Children's Village in Dharamsala (in which I felt very uncomfortable because first of all, its like going into someone's house and taking pictures, or in this case, a high school that isn't your own, and secondly because I think one girl I live with in the college hostel lives here otherwise), wasn't open for volunteering.

So my friends and I went to go speak with some political refugees who are learning english. I talked with a twenty-something farmer from the province of Kham, who participated in the 2008 uprisings, and as a result was shot in the back (the bullet went into his stomach) and in the arm, which shattered his elbow and he now wears a sling. After the protest, he escaped to Nepal, by way of tractor trailers and hiking in the mountains for one year, one month, and twenty-seven days, before reaching Nepal and paying a bribe to get papers to travel to Dharamsala. He's not able to work, due to his arm, and he only spoke Tibetan before coming to Dharamsala, so he is on a little scholarship program to learn English and Chinese. In 2010 he went to Taiwan to talk about Tibet. He wants to teach people about Tibet and tell his story, and hopes for a day he can go back home.

Before the official class time was finished, one Tibetan student stood up and made an announcement, followed by an english version announced with difficulty and to the general amusement of his classmates (whose english was no better, but who all found it riotously funny). Yesterday, a woman self-immolated in his town, and there was a solidarity march organized by the local nuns, and we were all invited to come. The protest, which was filled with flags and candles and singing, done I believe both for publicity and also social solidarity, was an amazing thing to see. It looped the main center of town twice before heading down to the main temple area and ending at the Tibetan National Martyrs' Memorial (interesting to note thats one of the first things you see when you step into the temple/museum/dalai lama's residence grounds).

I have some videos I will try to put up when the internet is better - here is one picture for now

Would you move to India? Would you move to the US?

I've recently had a few conversations with friends about living in the US and India. Despite having grown up in India all their lives, they still see the ridiculousness of the bureaucracy, silly rules, being so late, and all those other things that make living in India just the slightest bit, or sometimes greatly, more difficult than living in the US. But a lot of my friends don't think they'd ever want to live in the US, which they view as being clean, efficient, regular, and boring.

One friend of mine explained that she doesn't know what would make her life interesting if she didn't have someone cut her off driving to work and yell some hindi expletive at him. Another explained that life isn't uniform, regular, or easy, and that India reflects those aspects of life that living in the US hides.

Maybe I'm just too desirous of peace and quiet, but I don't think I'd like to live in India, which is exciting and filled with wonderful people, but perhaps a bit too much for an entire lifetime. 

Setting off to Dharamsala!

My life feels like a countdown; I got really excited when I realized today that its March. But thats partly because my birthday is in March, which makes it a generally exciting month.

Its also exciting because on Saturday I'm spending all night on a bus going to Dharamsala. Planning on seeing the Dalai Lama speak and poking around the Tibetan Government in Exile if I don't feel too awkward. Oh, and did I mention money spent at Tibetan craft centers goes to the refugees? Thats an incentive to buy tibetan handicrafts if I've heard one.

My friends, realizing I'm leaving so soon, are giving me lists of places to do and visit. Really when I get back from this vacation I have less than two months in India, and I'm really happy I've gotten to go to all the places that I have. There are always more places to see in India, but I'm content with the amount of traveling I've done, food I've eaten, things I've bought. The rest is a few check-offs, treats saved for the end, souvenirs, and extra niceties. While I'm eager to get back home to the dogs and family (I've gotten made fun of for putting it in that order, but who can blame me?) I think I'll mostly miss the people, Indians and ex-pats, and wish I had more time with them.

But anyways, pictures to come from Dharamsala! (and hopefully the Holi celebration too :)

Bribes

I went out to lunch with some friends of a friend this weekend, and as we were driving through Connaught Place, we got pulled over. The driver had gone through a yellow light, and the police man, waiting about fifty yards after the light (and therefore unable to see its color) decided he had run a red light and pulled him over.

The police man said that he could either go to court (give up a day of work) to pay a fine of somewhere around 1500 rupees, or give him 200 rupees. We gave him the money and went on. 

I've bought my tickets home.

I've bought my tickets home. Thats a pretty exciting deal. Also a very alien deal.

I don't think I'd choose to come back and live in Delhi, in fact it is probably going to be pretty low on my list. But I have now established a degree of normalcy and autonomy that make living here an accepted piece of reality in my mind. I have a fair bit of free time, though consumed mostly with work it is work I enjoy. I have some friends I can call and bother. I still talk with my friends back in the states every day, and both my parents. It could be an odd sort of limbo, but its become normal.

I don't know what to look forward to about going home. The idea of being with my family, my dogs (I've gotten made fun of for switching the order of those), is an idea so detached from my present perception of reality I can only come up with things like, 'I know when I see them I will be happy...'

A friend who has been abroad brought up how complete the sense of relaxation is when returning home, that despite now being comfortable dealing with language barriers, or accepting that a trip to get a toothbrush will take an hour and a half, all that effort to deal with these situations is still there. When you get home, everything is so easy.

I've got a few more trips planned before I leave. My mom is coming out at the end April, and we'll go to Leh, Ladakh (the Buddhist and safe part of Kashmir). I'm also heading up to Dharamsala to visit the Tibetan Government in Exile in March. Looking at my calendar, the amount of time left in India is so small. I haven't been able to do everything, nor will I be able to do everything, but I've done almost everything that I've wanted to do.

There are now less than 70 days until I go home. It has hit me but hasn't. I really don't think that it will until my mom comes, or until we're on the flight home. 

Coffee Culture

Most of my work this semester is research and papers. I'm taking two classes, History of Japan and Conflict Transformation and Peace Building, both of which essentially consist of writing research papers for the end of the term, one on Japanese-US relations pre-WWII, another explaining the failure of the Dalai Lama's International Campaign for Tibet. In my internship too, I'm basically set to research political theory on participation, citizenship, and trust. I like this style of working, because I have more free time and get to do projects in which I am interested.

This also means I spend a lot more time at cafes than last semester. I've always admired the European cafe culture, the sitting for hours on end ordering one coffee and reading an entire book. I think cafes are especially good for getting work done. I work better in public spaces, because I feel like I ought to be doing something, whereas when I'm in my room I get distracted by garage band and ...blogging about stuff...

Us Americans are really good at the coffee part of cafes, but perhaps exemplified by my own utilization of cafes for constructive ends, I don't feel like we entirely understand the European idea of cafe culture. We go to Starbucks or if we're lucky some independent cafe, use their wifi, check our email, write papers, all in our little bubbles.

In India, the idea of the cafe is still relatively new. Where us American student types are beginning to get really good at spending hours in cafe's ordering just a coffee (because we're broke and we want faster wifi), cafes in India haven't really evolved into this role. Likely this is because the first cafes weren't grassroots independent businesses, but chains like "Cafe Coffee Day," commonly referred to as CCD, and Barista who serve quick meals like fast food. The only cafes with wifi are more like nice restaurants, or bars (which I'm a bit confused as to why you'd put wifi in a bar).

While the US, or at least many of my friends, enjoy mimicking the European cafe ideal, I'd say that India is adopting the US coffee culture, which is on the one hand understandable (a developing country wanting to adopt the efficiency and regularity of the United States) and on the other hand confusing as, at least as an American, so much of Indian society seems slow, relational, and process-oriented. But maybe thats just the bureaucracy.  

Solving the problems in the Middle East

Generally, I keep my posts on this blog limited to being about India, and my experiences therein. But, for lack of a better forum, and for the time I put into the following paint drawing, I am going to talk about how governments can keep their citizens from hating them.

Today I stumbled across a quote in the last hour of my internship in which I was doing nothing but read the news in search of something silly, like for example the story a state senator in Mississippi trying to rename the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America, and subsequently a hispanic rights groups petitioning to rename the Mississippi River the Mexican River.

"Stress cannot exist in the presence of pie" it read. I posted this to facebook and, by five people 'liking' the sentiment, I concluded that it is universally applicable and objectively true. Therefore, with the help of my friend who has a strange fascination with Aristotelian political theory, we were able to put together the following plan for solving the problems of governments around the world:

For those of you who need glasses but don't wear them, the illustration is described thus:

Aristotle argues that it is the role of the city to not merely promote living, but living well.
If we accept that pie is a necessary condition for well-being (as evidenced by facebook), then the city should give its citizens pie.
Had states listened more closely to Aristotle, the Arab Spring probably would never have occurred.

While this may reflect both an adoration of pie and a level of nerdiness expressed in the excitement I experienced when I saw Foreign Policy had tote bags, I think that it also reflects something very legitimate about how to keep citizens happy. No really, why do you think Denmark, Sweden, and Finland are at the top of the happy countries list? (and Costa Rica, but I suppose they have nice beaches) Probably because Denmark gives out pie and, countries like Syria, well, Syria gives out tanks. 

In November I received a check that I have subsequently been attempting to cash. Now three months later, its beginning to get quite tiring.

First, when I tried to go to the bank to get cash, I was told I needed to go to the bank it was issued from. Less convenient, but okay. When I got to that bank, a pen mark on the corner of the check indicated that the money was to be deposited into an account. Well, I don't have an account. Lets reissue the check.
Second check gets lost in the mail. I go on a month long journey around India.
Third check, after much pestering, finally arrives. I go to the bank to get it cashed. No, this can't happen, it has to be cashed at the branch the check was issued from. I go to the branch the check was issued from. No, on the check it says my name is Sedona Chinn. On my ID, it says my name is Sedona Bianca Chinn. This can't be done.

I'm really hoping to get this figured out before I leave for home in another two plus months. Welcome to the Indian banking system. Don't get involved. 

Agrasen ki baoli

I'm getting to the point now where I'm looking at the calendar for the rest of the semester, blocked out with breaks, weekend trips, and due assignments, and realizing the little amount of time I have left. While I don't know the exact date I'll be done with school or when I'll be home, there are now less than eighty days until the end of April, which is around when I'll be back in California. 

Therefore all the things I need to do before I leave, places I need to see, things I need to buy, food I need to eat, I actually have to make a priority of now doing. I have trips planned to Jaipur, Dharamsala, and Ladakh, and the Taj Mahal, and with those done will have seen all I can think of wanting to see except Varanasi. The monuments left in Delhi are few, as are cuisines. 

Today after class, my friend and I went to Agrasen ki baoli, which basically was a giant well and swimming pool. You'll understand what I mean by giant in the pictures. 

yea apparently that was all filled with water. 

India Gate

Today I went on a one-hour tourist adventure to the India Gate, a giant World War I monument that looks like the Arc de Triumph. It really wasn't that exciting. I took an auto to the park, looked at the big arch, walked around it and took some pictures, got asked to get my picture taken three times, got grabbed by a lady with little Indian flag cut outs who tried to reassure me she taught small children though I had to detach her from my sweatshirt, and then took an auto to Khan market, which is nearby, to get pizza for lunch.

Here's a picture:

Oh, the park

This morning I was reading a lovely article about the psychology of nationalism at a cafe near my college. I was sitting by the window, and it looked out on to a little green lawn in the middle of the market. When I looked down, I saw something rather curious. A man had, it seemed, taken the watering hose to a sheltered little corner of the park and was sitting on a bench bathing himself. Luckily, he had concealed himself from indecency. I found I was struck with a strange mix of finding this a very odd activity, and also a rather rational activity. I suppose it makes a little sense that where there is running water and a sheltered area, you may as well take a bath. 

For want of meaning

I have given up trying to find logical reasoning in many of the issues I come across. Generally I do too much planning, trying to find perhaps the most efficient way of doing all my errands, so I'd say that giving up in this area is something of a step forward.

For example, I have ceased to look for a reason as to why, during our college festival, in which teams from other schools come to compete in music, dance, etc. from about 10-7, the college has decided that we will not be allowed to be off campus from 7:30-9:30. This rather impeded our plans to celebrate my friend's birthday on Friday. They also did not tell us in advance this would be the policy. I can't come up with any reasoning, and so failed to spend more energy on it.

Or, perhaps, why a restaurant with a 9:00 opening and extensive breakfast menu would, on a Saturday at 11, not be open.

I used to think there was some logic behind these kinds of phenomena that could be found deeply embedded in culture or tradition, or else were a form of social radicalism, but I don't believe this to be the case, as my Indian friends find it equally perplexing (though perhaps less frustrating). I've now come to accept that there are phenomena in the world that defy the powers of reason. 

February!

Today is the first of February, and though its only a day since January, it still feels like some sort of accomplishment, as though I'm a whole month closer to going home. I'm enjoying my work this semester, I'm enjoying a bit more freedom to roam around and do said work in cafes rather than being stuck in class. I'm not so homesick in any kind of heart-wrenching way. Mostly I'm just impatient.

For my internship, I've been assigned, as the political science nerd, to do general research regarding theories of political participation in:
Athenian democracy, Aristotle, Plato
The French Revolution, estates of society, advent of nationalism and citizenship
Social contract theory, Hobbes, Locke, and then Rousseau
Enlightenment philosophy, the rights of man, Kant, Voltaire
Civic Society, de Toqueville

Socialist/Communist thinkers, Marx, Engels
Effects of technologies on public participation, Robert Putnam and others

So that should satisfy whatever nerdish craving I may have in that area.

Further, I'm assigned to write a fifty page dissertation in two months. So that should be exciting. I'm presently working on finishing up the basic research design. It is for my Conflict Transformation and Peace Building class, and in that vein, I'm going to see if I can argue that the reason for the Dalai Lama's International Campaign's failure to effect change in Chinese policy towards Tibet is because it has not worked to grow trust between the PRC and the Government in Exile, necessary for any substantial negotiations.
For this, I'm mostly planning on focusing on the nature of chinese nationalism, the philosophy and strategy of the Dalai Lama's International Campaign for Tibet, and whether the international support he has gained has helped or hindered him to create any change in Tibet.

Yea and I got a little bit to do with Japan for my history class.

So I'm occupied. And its February.