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. 

Secret Santa

Today was secret santa. It was kinda like secret santa, only its January 31st, and instead actually being secret santa, you just give the people a gift. Only its with the whole hostel, so nobody actually knows anyone else, which means everyone crowds into one room and screams their secret santa's name. And then everyone gets some form of chocolate. I probably shouldn't eat it all tonight.

In other news, my mouth is all functioning again, with my tooth securely cemented back onto my tooth, which is incredibly reassuring to me. 

Republic Day

Today is Republic Day, one of those days that I think became a holiday because there hadn't been a national holiday in two weeks. See, independence day is back in August, but apparently the constitution didn't come into force until January, so hence Republic Day, 26th January.

Delhi has a severe lack of cafes with wifi. Trust me this will all tie together. But for the record, there are lots of cafes, and lots of nice restaurants with wifi, but the overlap between a casual cafe and wifi is surprisingly quite rare. This is unfortunate for me, because I am so much more productive when there is coffee and comfy seating, as opposed to a cement building that gets no light and gives me the feeling of being either under house arrest or in a monastery, depending on my mood.

Well, today, in celebration of Republic Day, they did actually put us on house arrest. Apparently there is some law that no one is allowed inside of an educational institution on Republic Day...So what does that mean for those of us who live in educational institutions?

I walked out of the dorm around ten forty-five, eager to get on with my studying, heading to one of the three cafes with wifi in all of south Delhi. I was unfortunately stopped at the door by the assistant warden, who said I couldn't go out until 12:30. By the goodness of her heart she gave me an orange, which kept me from starving for two hours as I waited impatiently. Finally when the time had come I went to the gate and was, there, not allowed to leave. Yes, the intention was to lock everyone inside the college all day. Yes, we were expected to abide by this. No, nobody had mentioned anything about this before.

They have, on past holidays, not let us out until lunch, I suppose the assumption being that all the troublemaking goes on from 8am to noon. No, shedding reason upon decisions will get you nowhere but backwards. Finally with enough hassling and complaining to the assistant warden, we were set free. A good thing, because I was starving and considering the weakest points of the wall to jump over just because I could not abide by being locked into a space with a perimeter of half a mile all day for absolutely no reason but because they could. This thinking, perhaps thankfully, did not need to continue from the initial idea stage before being set free.

I think perhaps what is most frustrating is being kept from doing my homework by the institution I'm doing the work for.

But I ate chinese food and stocked up on food for my room so I should be able to survive if I am again imprisoned. If I'm smart, I think I can stretch my resources for 48 hours. Not that they don't feed us, but I don't always want to eat it.

Happy Republic Day.