Day trip to Noida

Today I went on my first adventure alone after a morning of boredom and bothering people - Margaux finally told me I should just go on my own. Granted, the hour and a half trip was mostly spent in the "ladies only" car of the Delhi metro, but I'm still counting it as a little adventure.

Here are some pictures of the Yogoda Satsanga Society Ashram in Noida:

The ashram is only a year old from what I understand, and it looks like they have a lot of space for retreat people but I only saw one monk the whole time I was there, which surprised me, so the others must have been hiding I'd guess. 

Laundry

One of the first things I encountered that was different from my expectations here was laundry. Having lived away from home since I was fourteen, I've found that in order to live comfortably in a dorm you need to know only a few things: Where is your room, where is the key to your room, where is the bathroom, and where is the laundry room. These are the only things you need to find out the first day.

My expectations about laundry were confused by a conversation that is repeated below (abridged):

Where is the laundry room?
Downstairs, you just give it to the washer woman.
We don't do our own laundry?
Oh yea, we do our own laundry.
So where are the washing machines?

This is where we get to the clash between expectations and reality. There are no washing machines. Laundry is done either by giving it to the washer woman, who will wash any piece for 8 rupees (round up and say 20 cents), or you do it yourself, in the shower, in a bucket.
I'd hand washed clothes before when I went to Nicaragua, and there was a communal wash board and sink where dishes and clothes were cleaned, but there is no wash board here, just a bucket.

The other purpose the buckets serve is for bathing. Lady Shri Ram College for Women has been ranked the best liberal arts college in India for two years in a row now, and before that has been within the top three, playing back and forth with a few other schools each year. For such a brand name institution, one would think that the dorm, which is extremely competitive to get into, would have things like washing machines, or shower heads. I am actually extremely lucky in that the four foreign students in the dorm live together. Our two double rooms (well, single sized double rooms) connect, we share a balcony, and a bathroom with a western toilet and a telephone shower head. The other girls, who share the hall bathrooms, get the indian squat toilets and spickets in the shower stalls which they use to fill their buckets and pour over themselves with handled cups.

Indian speech and manerisms

One of the really confusing things upon my arrival was the asking of basic yes or no questions and getting answers I had to decipher.

Perhaps the most famous Indian manerism is the "Indian head roll," which is something like a diagonal head shake, or a bobble head movement. Hearing that this can be interpreted widely, encompassing yes, no, I don't know, and maybe, I felt a certain level of confusion when receiving it in response to questions like: Can I take this class?

My conclusions are that the Indian head roll is an affirmation, though it looks like one is shaking their head "no."

Another element of Indian speech is the ending of sentences with a "yes" or a "no." For example: You are a third year, yes? The store is this way, no? Only they say yes and no in Hindi. For no, this is pretty strait forward even to someone who doesn't speak Hindi: The store is this way, nay?

The yes, on the other hand, caused the same kind of confusion as did the Indian head roll: Can I take this class? haang. The problem was that haang (yes) sounds a lot like huh in english, which generally means I'll think about it.

I find now that my speech is changing to incorporate some of these speech patterns, but not yet fully. Instead, I find myself sort of halfway between Indian speech patterns and english. For example, where one might say: We're going to the market, haang? I find myself saying: We're going to the market, ya?

I obviously need to work on making the jump to actually speaking the hindi...

And now for something completely different...well, educational

Yes, I am transcribing my Indian Philosophy notes for you all. Why? because I think its so interesting that its hard to think of it as a class...for that reason as well as the near to zero outside reading...well, that I'm aware of in any case.

(Yes this was dictated, over the course of several days - the students have to take exams and basically know some of this stuff word for word...weird if you ask me but as its interesting I don't mind all that much, but will if it continues past today.)

General Characteristics of Indian Philosophy
Diversities and varieties among the nine schools of indian philosophy are such that there is hardly any point to which all of them agree. yet, we will attempt to find some points which are common concerns for most of the schools.

1. Practical motive present in all systems. One of the most important points of agreement is that in India all systems regard philosophy as a practical necessity and cultivate it in order to understand how life can be best led. The aim of philosophical wisdom is not merely the satisfaction of intellectual curiosity, but mainly an enlightened life.

2. Pessimism in Indian philosophy is initial, not final. Indian philosophy is pessimistic in the sense that it begins under a sense of discomfort at the existing order of things. But no Indian system stops with this picture. The essence of the Buddha's enlightenment ranging from the painful view of the world to the cessation of the pain, summs up the real view of every Indian school in this respect.

3. Belief in an internal moral order. Indian philosophy believes in an internal moral order, which pervades individuals, objects, nature, and the cosmos as a whole. It stands as the basis of cosmic harmony and acts as the substratum of moral principles.

4. The law of Karma. All schools of Indian philosophy accept the law of karma. according to this law, every action produces its fruit in due course of time, and the doer must suffer or enjoy from the same. This law helps explain differences among individuals. there are three kinds of karma accepted: Karma that has already produced its results, Karma that has not yet been fruitified, and Karma that has yet to be performed. Thus, the law of karma keeps provision both for free will and for destiny.

5. The universe as a moral stage. The body, the sense organs, an the motor organs that an individual gets and the circumstances that he finds himself in are the endowment of nature according to his karma. All get the "dress" and the "part" that befit them, and are to act well to deserve well in the future.

6. Indian thinkers opine that ignorance of reality is the cause of our bondage and suffering, and that liberation from those can't be attained without knowledge of reality. Bondage refers to the cycle of rebirth and the suffering that follows, whereas liberation is the end of this cycle and the consequent freedom from pain.

7. Due to its practical nature, indian philosophy believes in continued meditation on the truths learned in order to remove deep-rooted false beliefs. This led to the development of an elaborate technique fully explained in the yoga system. But yoga, in the sense of concentration and self-control, is not confined to that system only. It is found in Buddhism, Jainism, Sakya, Vedanta, and others.

I hope you enjoy my philosophy class. 

August 3

Beyond the familiar state of exhaustion, heat, and confusion, I can see the universe arranging itself for my comfort. Though the day started in the usual okay, not happy not sad, kind of way, I made friends in class by passing notes, overcame the lunch time exhaustion, negotiated some minor errands around campus, sang for two hours with the Western Music Society, and spent another hour and a half or so exploring the overgrown edges of the campus lawns.

How was I able to grow happier throughout the course of the day when yesterday I couldn't? For those of you who aren't familiar, welcome to this side of me: near constant meditation. In the morning, I meditated for ten minutes, and then slacked off while I was in class, and by lunch was exhausted, but since napping didn't work, and outside in the shade was a few degrees cooler than in my room, I went out again, meditated and felt better. It got to the point that I was reading a book and each paragraph took one meditative breath. By 7 I'd actually sat down to meditate four times, rather than the usual one, and kept my attention on meditative remembrances and breathing during the time in between. Now its nine o'clock, I am happy, and have energy to do things, which is a first since I've been here. 

Tomorrow morning, I'll wake up at 7:30 to do a short run and meet a marathoner who organizes several running clubs around Delhi. The sports coordinator here wants me to run a marathon for Lady Shri Ram College while I'm here. I'd love to, but not in this heat. But there is promise, as these running clubs would give me both the impetus and the safety in Delhi to go and run, which I find relaxing and rewarding. 

My friend and I are going on Sunday to Noida (an hour outside of Delhi) to visit an ashram of the Yogoda Satsanga Society (to those who know, the Indian name for the Self Realization Fellowship). Then we are going to the house of a relative of hers and are going to eat home cooked food and several large bowls of ice cream. 

All this is there, its the downtime that is hard, but if I fill it with meditation it ought to help me quickly. I really think I will love it here by October, because it will be a reasonable temperature, and the campus (while buildings are dingy on the inside) is so beautiful. By then too I'll know my way around and how to do things and have my routine. 

August 2

Today the usual white sky parted to reveal splotches of varying shades of light blue. Under any normal circumstance, I would have welcomed the blue sky, but this is India, and blue sky means sun, and when the weather is 99, feels like 112, the sun is not such a welcoming sight.

I spent another school day in a sort of permanent confusion. The bank opens at ten...but it isn't open...10:15, the bank computers aren't on...my meeting is during an extracurricular period, but I'm late to class? the extracurricular period was changed? when? so when are my other classes then?...Do you want to go to the library? It closes at five. No, the upstairs library is open until 8. Yes, but right now its only open until 5... For as much as we complain about the St. As administration I'm starting to get nostalgic.

There are a variety of fruit trees on campus with small fruit, so when the time comes I intend to pick pomegranates, lemons, and guavas and steal them away to my room. My friend (whose name I won't spell correctly) Moitreyee is going to take me to Noida this Sunday to visit an ashram of the Self Realization Fellowship, here Yogoda Satsanga Society, about an hour away. I am really looking forward to that.

Despite all my future plans and ideas, today some combination of extreme heat, confusion, and nostalgia has kept me a bit down. By about lunch time I'm ready for bed. I am thinking of going through the guidebook and making a list of all the places I want to visit throughout the year, hoping to kindle some excitement for the moment. Today was just a harder day for some reason. 

continued from yesterday...

Yesterday I was too tired to really write much, and I didn't do too much of great interest today, so I'll just pick up where I left off yesterday.

Caitlin and I visited Hauz Kaus, which apparently is some sort of ruined Mogul emperor building/castle/mosque thing. People were just chillin all over the place, there were no guard rails, no signs saying not to go somewhere for the sake of the historical value of the place. Rather, there were teenagers and young couples playing Pit Bull from their phones, which was odd when you'd go through skinny stone passageways and emerge to "grab somebody sexy tell them hey." Exploring a little more (in a fruitless search for a way down to the tank/pond place) we found what looked like a community of squatters in one side of the ruins.

After spending most of noon to four in the sun either at Hauz Kaus or Dilly Haut, we went back to Caitlin's room she rents, which looks remarkably similar to my room, but has ac, and then to her friend's apartment a few doors down, which looks absolutely nothing like my room or Caitlin's room, bare and blank, but was cold from the AC and all modern and comfortable. You could have been in NYC.

We ended up in a long conversation about how Delhi is the worst big city in India for women as far as safety goes, power disparity, etc. After about fifteen minutes of discussion on the dangers of being a woman in Delhi, Caitlin turned to me and said, "But you're going to have a great year here!"

Speaking of safety in Delhi, I soon after had to leave to check back into my dorm at 7:30, return a signed slip that had said where I was going and when, and then wait to go to bed until 9:30 when the warden comes around to see that we are all alive and accounted for.