Backing up, and then, Despite my Natural Tendencies, Trying to Sprint Forward

We'll start with my birthday, leaving part of February fumbling in the unlit corners of my memory.

[A brief note before this arbitrary beginning: before my birthday, we went to Agra. Was the worst city I've seen. At what was supposedly one of the nicer hotels in the area, I asked for clean replacements for the stained bedsheets in our hotel room. The man fumbled around a huge pile of frumpled sheets in a closet before coming out with a small one: "we only have one." The city was bad as well. We saw the Taj. For my feelings about it, see http://natalieireland.blogspot.com/2010/03/paris.html.]

My birthday happened to coincide with the Holi Festival of Colors, in which people in many parts of India run around the streets shouting and throwing powdered and liquid colors over everything in sight. Culturally, all I know: it's a celebration of Lord Krishna, it's when gods descend to Earth, it's when all normal rules are off. So men were reaching down our fellow females' shirts and expecting it to be acceptable. They just kind of rolled with it, for the most part. India often has that absorptive effect; you stop questioning it. Maybe it's the language barrier, but maybe not. ("Let India change you, because you sure won't change it.")

We celebrated in Mathura, which is supposed to be Krishna's birthplace (for more information on this blue beckoner, refer to The Bhagavad Gita. We tried to stay in Vrindavan, which we found to be impractical, and gave up. I distinctly remember the image of Mara politely shouting above the din of a group of local residents, "we're looking for a hotel!" while they stood in place and blasted her face with colors without restraint. After searching with no luck, we took the rickshaw ride to Mathura.

Got a pre-birthday call from Natalie. Nothing beats that. Made my day.

We settled into the Gaurav Boarding House, which cooked a mean margharita pizza. I spent part of the night sitting on the rooftop with Paul, Diana, and Anna, drinking beer and smoking bedes and singing bullshit songs Anna made up (which were concurrently awesome) and noticing the size of the moon's light halo that the clouds were screening.

I came back in, was summoned to the lobby, and was ambushed by birthday surprises. It was sweet, and it was thoughtful.



Fast forward eight hours, and I'm looking at a bottle of vodka that was put in my hand, wondering, "is this the direction I want my birthday to take?" Apparently so, for half an hour later I will be feeling the effects as colors fly everywhere around me, smeared on my shirt on my face, flying from my bag at any bystander. Green is my favorite, but there is no blue. And suddenly we are being lead to the house of a friend who I met the night before, the whole big group of us. He is Shikarr. He is very anxious. I see it on his face. And Paul keeps getting left behind, or leaving himself behind, performing the elaborate and exclusive Indian show of respect of the student to his master to everyone he sees on the streets. And suddenly, motorcycles and bicycles are driving around us, and the unfamiliar Indians riding them shout, "Joey! Get on!" in Hindi. And so here I am, laughing, riding down Mathuran avenues in circles with my abroad friends parading along within, toward some unknown house at the end of the walk.

And then we hear music, so we stop and celebrate in another family's driveway. We dance. I play a drum that's handed to me. And I play well, considering its foreignness to me. Much much fun.

Shikarr's family is very hospitable. They feed us, we dance more, we throw colors, Paul continues getting lost and Amanda looks for other houses to go into. In fact, she is being encouraged by a young metallic silver boy to come to his house.

We return to the hotel. We regain our sanity, we try to go to Vrindavan. We fail. Festivities end rather punctually, and we are left with a bunch of unfriendly Vrindavanis staring at our color pouches and stained clothing. We return to the hotel. I realize how surreal and awesome the day has been.

The Internship Drops in on Me, or Jumping to Conclusions

And suddenly, the classroom phase of this whole 3-month dream has evaporated. I say "dream," and I imply something strangely dissociative with "evaporated," and this perhaps elucidates my experience--to an extent. And yet, it seems to me now that I won't know how this yet amorphous piece fits into my life's jigsaw until I return home and it condenses at its own leisurely pace, collects so I can view and feel it more reliably. It certainly is surprising to discover how easily I (we) normalize such a novel, voluntary exodus. What it will eventually mean for me, I don't know.

I've traced some stumbling, sidelong line of longitude from my birthplace to this present pole, nearly but imperfectly opposite in geography. I could have charted this flowery vision of my migration pre-departure. And yet, I couldn't have imagined the ways in which my birthplace resting entirely beyond the curve of the horizon would bend and locate the scape of my memory in imitation. I remember my mother's face, the image of my dad, but can't quite grasp the feelings of their hugs. I've kissed Natalie thousands of times, but I can barely imagine how surprising and fresh it will be the next time I do. This adventure has, on one canvas, been about the defamilarization of this estrangement. The complement to the predictable intensity of a young white American living in India is that the topography of my memory has amplified, the tops of the mountains pulled on strings by the distance from my home. But the bases stay in place. And so while some of the most common parts of my life at home, the underlying, compositional, routine pieces of my days--riding my bike, lying in my bed, playing with ruby, studying at Cupcake--seem screened by the horizon, as it were, deeply buried memories of my past stretch above that threshold (if this seems intuitively upside-down, it is; that's the name of the game). It's an incredible experience to suddenly recall myself at four years old, dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for some Mound town parade, my dalmatian sister standing next to me. These mnemonic moments usually seem so unattached to whatever I'm doing: walking down the streets of Jaipur, sipping a cup of chai. And yet, these flashbacks feel mysteriously significant in some way I've yet to discover. Not surprising then, that this journey abroad has felt in part like a dream. In some ways, that's exactly what it is.

Pretty self-indulgent. My defense: you're reading a travel abroad blog.

Something somewhat concrete to come, that may tell you what I've actually been doing. In other words, the internship.

Locating Myself

Sometimes, I dream the entire night of my life back home. If I lie in bed on the dawns of those mornings too long, I drift even further from India. Sometimes, I have to stop to remind myself that I'm here. "...It seems your entire life you've been coasting along as if it were a dream..." Sometimes, it hits me how strangely possible it is to live in two places at once. It's the surreal, narrative, big brother of multitasking. Did I mention before that I'm learning more about the inside of me, about what precedes me (namely, my past, what I come from), about my relationship to the U.S., to home, than I am about India? I think that's because every new moment here is a crisis of rearticulating myself in a new mold, of Shiva hammering that mold into some more refined shape. If any of this sounds homesick or unpleasant, then I've failed to convey the fascination and excitement of this all, which I don't think I could expect to do anyway. It is also much less fantastic and certainly never so climactic as it might seem, and therein lies my adoration of these experiences: they're real.

But, I must say, I am beginning to move to the rhythm of this place more. I don't feel so shellshocked. I barely even look both ways before crossing the street now. I talk to locals more. I'm learning about India. I'm not so afraid to think something about it. Before, it felt like every move was a misstep. Now, I stumble knowing the necessity of doing so. The first day we met Rima ji, she told us that "the world is not a perfect place." It is strange how happy that makes me to keep in mind when this all seems confusing.

I've decided that I want to be a psychologist, a musician, or a teacher when I grow up. Or some combination of the three. It came to me suchly during the car ride to Shekawati on Wednesday, as I was listening to music. Not suddenly, but after my mind had wandered long. It was comforting to hear something so clear and simple this brain of mine. It's amusing and refreshing, what moving from place to place can do for you.

The longest night of my life.../The first breaths of cultural adjustment

I meant to finish this post about two weeks ago. As you can guess from that, I've had little time for blogging. Sorry!

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My first thought as I stepped out of Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi, and the best I can muster to summarize this first week in India: "well, I certainly didn't expect this." I am very much the child who didn't listen to the counseling parent in my head. But however many times I told myself it would be unlike my expectations, there really was no way for the message to get through. We always draw up some crude sketch of our upcoming experiences, to placate our unease with the unknown. That persistence is surprising, as I've never ultimately encountered the image I thought would be waiting.

The first days were dreamlike, but I chalk it up to jet lag, the trailing lines of my thoughts seduced from settling in my memory by the blackhole of our lost time. It wasn't the exoticism of some strange land enchanting my mind. I suspect that sort of thing doesn't exist. Looking back through the pictures I took at Jaipur's Amber Fort yesterday (the original bastion of Jaipur's founder, Jai Singh, before he lay plans for the Old City section of Jaipur), I was reminded of the photographs of "the East" I've seen before, which suggest some concept of exoticism. But my experiences yesterday were those of a person, and I saw other people, who move and act like people, buildings that pose according to their architecture, animals that sleep where they can, when they're tired, and children who beg when their bellies are empty and they have no food. There wasn't any strange brew of new physical laws, nor incomprehensible happenings. Certainly, much (or most) of what I've seen I can't understand, but other people do. What is left in the void of any fading concept of exoticism is culture. People do stuff differently, that sort of thing. This feels simple and beautiful--no climactic drug-trip of estrangement. And yet, it sure is difficult to find my place in a different culture. When you don't know what something like a facial expression means, its hard to tackle any of the bigger things.

Enough of that abstract banter. A shortchanging summary of sights and sounds this far: I left my parents through the security gates of MSP International and my loneliness and anxiety quickly subsided. The emotions of goodbyes, even "see you laters," really wear me out. Feeling good setting out on my own, I went to meet the other MSIDers. It turned out only four of us departed from MSP: Amanda, Samia, Nancy, and I. They all were friendly, and conversing with them for the first time was a relief. The flight was nearly two hours delayed. I spent the whole Minneapolis-Newark hop agonizing over a sudoku, the first I've ever tried my hand at. It happened to be a four star in difficulty, so you know, and I simply couldn't crack its code before it was time to switch flights. The flight was awful: it took the pilot about an hour and a half to land. It seemed like the storm looming over Newark kept blowing us higher as we struggled to find ground. Once we finally did, we had to rush to the Delhi gates. The entrance was packed, mostly with Indians returning home and a few giddy whities. The man from Himachal Pradesh, whom I sat next to on the plane, asked me "what you saw at the gate? Multiply that by 5000, and you'll know what to expect in India."

My emotions were all over the place on the way there. I couldn't watch any of the movies without feeling depressed. It is hard for me to be excited about something I can't reliably envision. I didn't know what to expect that could possibly be true. I couldn't escape the thoughts of loss: being away from my friends, my family, my drums, my normal life, Natalie. It was hard.

We arrived at Delhi, and I felt a bit better, having met the other friendlies in the group. As we left Mary and Paul behind to report their lost luggage, the first sight of India entered our minds. Look at my facebook pictures if you want to see. It's hard to explain those first moments. What I can say is the air smelled so unique. It wasn't bad. It was, I hate to say, somewhat enchanting, at the risk of sounding stereotypical. I knew at that moment that I couldn't have known what to expect before I arrived.

We were marched onto a bus and shuttled into Delhi. The man driving us didn't say a word to us except "off!" when we finally arrived at the hostel. The whole way, the city was foggy, the air was thick and orange, and we couldn't see more than twenty feet out the bus windows. The countryside was revealing itself to us on its own terms: deliberately, with reservation, even, it seemed, to play tricks on us.

We finally arrived at some hostel. The first greeting was a sign that said, "YWCA - IF YOU LIKE PEOPLE, PEOPLE WILL LIKE YOU." I thought, "oh, that's eccentric, and nice."

We were received at the hostel with almost no introduction by two people we'd come to know as Rishi ji and Ritu ji ("ji" is a general title of respect in Hindi). After being assigned rooms, I realized I was the only person with a room to myself. After the emotionally tumultuous, sleep-deprived, crazed trip over, this was the last thing I needed. I finally lay down at about one-thirty (we didn't arrive until thirty minutes past the new day). As I tossed restlessly the next three hours, I couldn't shake the glaring awareness of being utterly alone, except for a few strangers, in a land I knew nothing of, not even the directions to my current location. "And where is that chanting coming from?" shook hold of my thoughts every 15 minutes as the same strange melody renewed itself from somewhere beyond the saffron shroud of fog enveloping the night. I had nothing to hold onto, nothing to cling to for support. No way of reaching my family, friends, nor Natalie, no way of articulating any sense of myself in relationship to this sprawling country. Swallowed by a beast without seeing its face first. I really do think those three hours were some of the hardest of my life. In short, I was afraid, lonely, and lost. It was also, quite literally, the longest night of my life: it was dark when we left Newark, it was dark in the plane cabin the entire way to Delhi, and night had large reserves for a fragmented sleep cycle when we arrived at the hostel. I felt like I was holding my breath under the oppressive ocean of darkness. Something seemed suddenly cheap about the YWCA sign that welcomed us to India. Mocking, even. As if anyone believed that India was simple. Mocking me for not being some construction paper cut out of a human being, but instead some curled up ball rolled naively and weakly into the feet of this beast of a country. 115 nights to go.

And, like has never not happened, it passed. I slept, eventually, among the wailing song of some person's prayers to God. When I awoke, I felt lonely and emotionally drained, but the day picked up quickly. A roommate, a late arrival, Bert, knocked on the door. He was friendly and talkative, and that lifted my mood some. And once orientation began, and Rima ji, the program coordinator, showed up, I felt much better. What we were doing began to solidify. We spent that day and the next morning on program introduction stuff. I found some people to tell how I was feeling. Most of the group was very friendly. That night, I got a hold of Natalie on Facebook, which was very relieving.

As the evening arrived, Diana, Dory and I went to a Sikh temple nearby, the largest in Delhi (and logically, the source of the previous night's chanting). I won't go in to details, since this post is already much too long. I will say that we three whities stumbled around looking confused, wondering where we remove our shoes, when we have to cover our heads, where is the entrance, until a guy about my age approached and introduced himself to me. He was very friendly, and asked if we were European. He was very excited to meet a foreigner. He offered to guide us, and even paid some small fees for us. He completely ignored the girls at first, which was uncomfortable, but eventually he warmed up. Anyway, his name was Nittin. If you want to know more about the Sikh temple adventure, just ask.

Next day, we took the long trip to Jaipur by road. The highway was always filled with traffic. Traffic in India is a free for all. Essentially, a driver must: get where he needs to go as quick as possible, without hitting other vehicles. Otherwise, anything goes. It is actually surprising how well it works out. It's exhausting for a foreigner at first, as other cars move within about three inches of yours, so you're always holding your breath. We did hit someone's rear-view mirror, snapping it closed. They were driving toward us in our lane, and swerved out of the way right before they would have collided head on.

I journalled much of the way there, because there was much to think about. The highways diverted into these strange villages about every ten mintues. These places were my first encounters with the poverty here. I won't say much now, for I'm sure I will later. It was exhausting though. Arriving in Jaipur was a relief.

Quieter than Delhi, Jaipur is still a giant city. 3-4 million. It was pretty, coming in as the sun was sagging across the sky's waistline. We saw the MSID office, a laid back little villa tucked away on a side street from Jawaharlal Nehru Marg. Here is where we'd meet each weekday for classes for the next 6 weeks. We were dropped at our host families.

Marty and I: roommates. Marty's a class act. Very different personality from mine, but I like the kid a lot. He lifts a whole lot of weights, he's in some sort of professional fraternity at Penn State. He's studying Actuarial Science. He is incredibly positive and friendly. He laughs non-stop when he talks to his girlfriend online. He gives me pointers on how to get more out of my push-ups and crunches. He is, in his words, "very materialistic," which is why he's going to be an Actuary. He's also a technology fiend: he brought along his 1 terrabyte hardrive. What could he possibly need that for, you ask? Bollywood movies. He has more than 300 stored on there. He watches so many, he has picked up the basics of the Hindi language through diffusion. And, he spends our school days reading New Moon or Breaking Dawn on his iPod Touch. Like I said, quite the guy. Everyone's always calling him up, asking for tech help. He should start a tech service, and charge. He's already got one business: selling ultimate frisbees. Fantastic. He's a good person to have around.

We're staying with the Chauhan family. They live in the "Surana Building," above some jewelers (Jaipur is one of the gem capitols of the world). They have a nice flat. There is a lot of marble, and about 3 balconies. Ashok, Pratiba, and their son Avajit comprise our host family. We don't see the latter much; he doesn't eat with us, nor leave his room much at all. I'm not sure what he does in there. Nevertheless, he has exercised great hospitality, as the whole family has, since my accident. But the time for that has not come...Hospitality seems to be of huge cultural importance. For work, Ashok does some sort of agricultural reseach with fertilizers, and Pratiba is the headmaster of an primary school.

Pratiba ji and Ashok ji and we have gotten closer as the weeks have passed. We are finding more to talk about. A little bit of politics have entered our conversation, and so asking for directions around town has been pushed to the side a bit. We laugh some nights, we talk a bunch some, and other nights, we are quieter. The major time for interaction with them is at breakfast and dinner. Meals are a big deal here. They take much time, and there are usually about seven things on the table. The food has been wonderful, although in the repeated theme of defying all expectations, it is not spicy whatsoever. Pratiba told us the first night that they don't like their food spicy. Anyway, I have gained 5 pounds already, and they are very proud. They weigh us every 10 days. We eat chapati (a warm, soft flatbread) with everything, and use it to scoop up other dishes. Lots of dal, rice, alu (potato), gajar (carrots, but they are tasty and bright red!), radishes, chutneys (gooseberry is my favorite), gurt (yogurt I think, essentially?), and many assortments of both main dishes and sweets. Rajasthan is famous for its desserts. Oh, and I how could I not mention the guava. They will remember for my affinity for guava, I'm sure of it.

Classes have sucked. The best is Hindi, which is saying a lot. I haven't gotten used to the education style of our professors. It is not linear, it is very meandering. It has been very frustrating. Our development teacher is not very open-minded to opposing viewpoints on development. I'm hoping things will get more interesting once we get into our tracks. We get two chai breaks each school day. We are there from 10 to 4 or later everyday, which makes the days seem very long. About twice as much class time as I'm used to in the States. Every Friday, we have a field excursion. We are beginning to think about our internships, and they are scouting for placements. I am pumped about that, hoping to find something that suits me with a mental health organization.

There is much more to tell, but I can't possibly get through a fitting account of the last three weeks. I'll list some of my activities, and if you want to hear more, comment and ask about them. Hows about that?

In the past three weeks I've:

-Seen the historic Amber Fort, where Jai Singh resides before planning the Old City of Jaipur.
-Gotten lost in the city about 4 times.
-Seen homeless mothers stamp a hospital bill for their child against our car window as we waited in traffic, while her legs of her child, slung over her shoulders, are visibly infected, cracking, and bleeding.
-Eaten in essentially western restaurants with lower prices and Indian food.
-Been treated with indifference, coldness, hostility, and also warmth, helpfulness, and benevolence.
-Gone running in Central Park.
-Done yoga in Central Park with some staring elders.
-Seen Sanganer (sp?), where methods of papermaking by hand, blockprinting, and pottery are historic and well known.
-Bartered for autorickshaws, the best form of transportation.
-Eaten ladu, an incredibly tasty dessert.
-Performed rituals in a beautiful Sikh temple.
-Made new friends.
-Missed home dearly.
-Felt culture shock.
-Climbed with fellow MSIDers to the top of a few massive hills. Atop one was a beautiful white temple, from which you could see breathtaking views. Inside, we all revered the religious symbols and statues. The other was rougher trail. Actually, there was no trail at all. We ate lunch at the very top, and we could see all of Jaipur stretched out below. It stretched to the horizon, and as far as I could see from left to right. The descent was beautiful and fun as I jumped and slid and grabbed trees for support, listening to my headphones.
-Tried to get tabla lessons. Cultural frustration #1: if you want to get something done, except to make about 4 trips.
-Gone to the gym, called "Addiction," with Marty, my weekly personal trainer.
-Sprained my ankle running, which is why I'm shacked up in bed, rather than journeying in Udaipur this weekend.
-Tried blunderingly thus far to learn Hindi.
-Enjoyed the amazing Jaipur sunrises.
-Emailed a fair deal, and chatted with Natalie online quite a bit. We are making plans for a trip to Greece on our way back to the States.
-Tried to understand my place here, and what this experience means to me. Slow but sure, but always learning more.
-Did I mention how much I miss home?

And yet, this experience is unfolding in new ways with every new day. Cultural adjustment is, I think, a very transformative, if not difficult process. For the time being, I'm going to keep staying with each day as best I can. Until next time, I hope this is enough to make up for my silence in these last weeks.

Time fastly whittling down...

Well, here goes my little online quasi-public travel journal. I'll try to refrain from misguidedly essentializing claims about Indian life and India as a people and place, and do what I can to avoid the problems of a typical travel narrative. I hope you readers all enjoy, that this can be both entertaining and informative, and that I don't distort the way of things in the immense, complicated, and challenging land that will host me for the next few months. And also, prepare, for I'm sure this will be pretty self-absorbed, given the format. You've been notified.

Somehow, I'm left with only 3 days before the time arrives to head across the world. 3 days! Looking back, I've been in a strange limbo for the last month, a time that has been neither winter break nor Christmas season as usual, but rather The-Time-Before-I-Leave-For-India. I'm extremely excited to actually begin the journey, predictably, but its completely new for me to have no idea what any of the aspects of my life will be like in less than one week. So, a little anxiety has settled in as well. Of course, I'm feeling pretty strapped for time. The little practicalities of preparation always take much longer than you'd expect. So I haven't read as much as I had hoped, nor have I learned much Hindi, as I had planned. I've dabbled a little--trying to learn the alphabet and pronunciation. Otherwise, I've been studying the preparatory program readings about development and globalization, which were very interesting and explained a bit about the problems of neo-liberal economic policy and imperialism, reading some of the presumably prerequisite works (Arundhati Roy's The God of Small Things and Salman Rushdie's Midnight's Children), and learning whatever I can about Indian history, culture, and religion. I'll probably watch some Bollywood films in the next few days to garner a bit of pop culture currency to barter in conversation. I certainly don't want to come off completely ignorant of popular small talk topics. I'm sure some of that's inevitable. Oh well--just dive in, I suppose the advice would go.

I'm sure I'll be waiting at the airport before I know it. I doubt I'll say much more before I'm writing from Delhi. Until then, take care any and everybody.