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.