India trip, 12.03

In The Masrayana, the main character is trying to undo the incorrect issuance of a death certificate in his name. One way he’s tries to undo this is by getting arrested for committing a crime, and having a police report filled out in his name, so that his name could be on an official record and the government would have to prove that he’s actually alive. To do this, he steals fruit from a fruit seller to try and get himself arrested.

Check out the bag that he’s using. It’s a juut bag, like potato-sack material, and it says ‘say no to plastic’ on it in Hindi. This bag was made by Karm Marg, the commune for street kids just outside of Delhi that I volunteered at two years ago, and this was their Chicago deput. Hell yea!!

Aight kids, so I’ve been back for two weeks now. My re-entry into society has been an interesting process. I feel like my sister’s cat when we cover her in a towel and take her to a different part of the house. She peeps out of the towel, and what she sees is familiar, and she knows its familiar. But still, she peeps out of the towel cautiously, sits there and looks around for a little while, letting it all soak on. Then maybe she’ll step one foot out of the towel, then look around again, to see if anything changed since the last time she looked around before she set her one foot out of the towel. That cycle of minor entry and massive observation happens over and over again til she’s finally out of the towel. Then she hears a loud noise and runs like hell under the couch…

Okay, so back to the comparison. Running like hell under the couch aside, my re-entry into society here in the states has been a lot like my sister’s cat crawling out of the towel. The morning after I got back, I had to go work. Worthless, I know. But I woke up in the morning, and usually the t-shirt I wear to sleep will go straight to the hamper. Because before I left, I’d wear an old metal t-shirt as an undershirt to work, wear the same shirt to bed, throw it in the hamper in the morning and grab a new metal t-shirt to do the same thing with the next morning. That first morning I was back, I didn’t throw my shirt in the hamper. I threw it on the floor, and I wore the same shirt to bed every night that week, cause I didn’t feel right throwing in the hamper to wash it unless it TOTALLY HAD to be washed, cause I didn’t want to waste the water. I went to the washroom to brush my teeth, and that was pretty much the same. I always turn the faucet off while I’m brushing my teeth, anyway. But this time I kept the pressure on the faucet lower than cranked all the way up like I usually do. I washed my face, and while I was lathering my face up, I turned the faucet off. Dryed up, and put on some of my new clothes from Fab India (hell yea).

Work was sooooo dead. But when I got back to my desk, I just looked around at all the STUFF I had. Stuff. I’ll talk about all my stuff in a little bit. But at work we have a water cooler in the kitchen that I get water from, cause I try to drink a lot of water each day, since it’s fuel for life. Next to the water cooler we have these piles of big disposable Solo cups with nice little airbrushed designs on them that everyone uses—sometimes two at a time—to drink water in. After they’re done, they’ll throw the cup(s) away, and next time they’re at the water cooler they’ll grab new cup(s). It’s okay to use 8 cups a day for 4 glasses of water though, cause when I throw them away in my magical waste basket, Maria the Garbage Fairy comes every night to magically wisk them away to never-never land… So for the few months before I left, I went through these phases where I’d use a ceramic mug instead of the disposable cups cause I was a little conscious of the waste. After coming back from India, I’ve been using my ceramic mug religiously. It’s a nice mug, too. It’s got a picture of a green atom sitting in silouette of a grey a beaker, and forming a circle around the beaker it says ‘Over 15 Years of Uninterrupted Service – Chem-Nuclear Systems, Inc.’ So everyone thinks I’m a hardcore-scientist dude. Also, my lunches I always bring in a plastic bag that I get leftover from grocery shopping. That I still do, but now I don’t throw away the plastic bags at all. I collect them at my desk and take them back home to reuse for future lunches. Also, all the printouts I make I’ve been saving and I’m going to use them as scratch paper. Maybe I could bind them up and use them in my padfolio, too. When I go to the washroom, after washing my hands, I used to use three pieces of paper towels to dry my hands. I’ve found now that after shaking the access water off my hands, I can dry my hands enough with one paper towel. So maybe over the course of doing that over several years I’ll save a tree or two. And of course, I don’t turn the water up all the way when I’m washing my hands. So at work, I’ve been trying to be more conscious of reducing waste I create, and avoiding turning my leftovers into waste. But the mindset I had before I left is screaming at me in the face everyday. Jared, Sachin, and Steve are always using the airbrushed Solo cups for water and tea. The printer is right by my desk and it’s always going off, and when people pick up their printouts, I’m wondering where the paper’s gonna go when they’re done with the information it’s providing. Every Tupperware container in the fridge is wrapped in a plastic bag that probably ends up collected in the garbage cans between 12-1p. Paper shredders are all over my office. Crazy.

So, back to my stuff. I swear I have so much freakin’ stuff. Stuff on my desk, stuff in my room, stuff in my house, stuff in my bag, stuff in my closet, stuff in my garage. It’s all stuff I’ve had forever, and I’m never going to do anything with, but I keep it, ‘just in case.’ I think I’m going to go through all my STUFF and either donate it to people who can actually make use of it (like the marg), or think of something useful I could do with it. We’ll see. But America in general is all about STUFF. Stuff is a status symbol. It screams your place in society, and everyone for some reason wants run to the Appalachians and announce that they’re better off then they actually are, so everyone gets stuff. And gets more stuff to go along with their stuff. And gets new stuff cause they’re current stuff is outdated or obsolete. And gets different stuff cause they’re getting tired of they’re old stuff. And gets the stuff the neighbors got next door cause they can’t have other people having stuff they don’t have, so they gotta get stuff. All they want is their stuff. And it’s THEIR stuff, no one else’s. I’ve decided to reduce my collection of stuff. I know I can’t eliminate stuff altogether, cause our society is built with little substitutes for stuff. But I know I can reduce my stuff tremendously.

Space is an interesting issue I’ve noticed too. I mentioned this in my earlier post, but in the states, space is so clearly defined, and the social rules are kinda strict on breaking and imposing on other people’s space. My house has a fence and a front door that defines its space. My bedroom has walls and a door. My cubicle has walls. Our streets have lanes and social rules that go along with them that say when it’s appropriate to change lanes. Our streets have sidewalks that are pretty strictly used for pedestrians. We have terms like ‘pedestrians’ who have the ‘right of way.’ India’s lines for space are much softer than in the states. Most houses that I saw didn’t have ‘fences’ around their ‘yards.’ Houses were butted up against each other, and it seemed that the space in front of the house was negotiated with your neighbors. Streets had lines, but they weren’t enforced by the same rules we have here, they were much more flexible. Sidewalks were there, but were more used as houses for the homeless and urinals than they were for walking on. So, pedestrians used streets, too. ‘Pedestrians always have the right of way’ doesn’t exist in India. As a driver, if you see a person in the road trying to cross, first you honk your horn as much as you can so he stays out of your way, and then if need be you yell at him out your window to get off the road. So I guess the motto would go ‘pedestrians, get the f**k out of my way.’

Being back in the states, I feel I much more aware of things that the bubble we live under in America provides us to have to think about.

So it’s been a week back in the states and I’ve had a lot of time to collect my thoughts. When people ask me how my trip was, it’s impossible to summarize everything I’ve felt over the past three weeks in five minutes. And it seems to be the standard in the states that people don’t have time to sit, and listen, and CONVERSE, so I haven’t really gone into great detail about my trip with all too many people. My family, my girlfriend, one of my buddies, one kid from work who could relate. Everyone else, all I can say is that it was AWESOME.

No, it wasn’t a life-changing experience. No, it wasn’t a spiritual journey. It was just ‘different.’ I saw so many things in India that I ‘knew,’ that I had some idea about, but in India everything was right in front of my face, but was looked at in different light and had different definitions than we have in the states. Poverty was everywhere in the form of families making a curbside their home. But is poverty a horrid and desperate situation that is begging for MY help? I can’t answer that. The girls who worked at Nizzamuddin can probably answer that better than I can, but all I can say is that poverty in India means something different than it does here. Community is a strong social construct for a lot of people in India. Is that beautiful? Or is it a bitch to deal with everyone all up in yo’ bidnazz? I can’t answer that either. But a neighbor and a friend in India means something different than one here. I barely know my neighbors in my ranch-style home in the burbs. In India, it’s more likely that your neighbors whos cement and brick shelters and butted up against yours are pretty damn close to being part of your family. Personal space is not much of an issue in India. Houses are small and butted up right against each other. But my house in the burbs has a fence, a yard, a front door, and a curbs, clearly defining my space. An average house in India has very blurred lines. When I drive, I stay in my lane, and signal (I’m supposed to anyway) before I enter another lane, or someone else’s space. In India, you put your car wherever there’s room. If you’re passing someone, you honk your horn or flash your beams so they know you’re there, but that’s a courtesy, cause you don’t slow down.

Things in India are just different, and that’s all they are. They’re not weird, they’re not crazy, they’re not chaotic. They’re just different. The artist in me had such a hard time coming to this conclusion and accepting this idea. To me, art at a very basically level is creating order out of chaos. My experiences growing up in America have defined ‘chaos’ for me to mean very basic things. My first week in India showed me everything I understood as chaos as being the basic norm there. After my first week, I started asking if everything I saw, on the roads, on the signs, through the people interactions, was really chaos. After a while I started peeling off the lens that my upbringing put in front of my eyes and seeing order in everyday life India simply for what it was. Just different. People do follow rules when they drive. When I’m shopping at a store, I’m supposed to just go up to the guys at the counter and start talking. There are no expectations of waiting in line for your turn. That’s just the way it is.

My last day and Karm Marg was cool. The seperation I was about to partake was probably much more for me than it was for the kids. I’m not going to have a very big impact on their lives. They’re still going to be waking up tomorrow morning, eating out of the same plates, interacting with the same kids and masterji’s, practicing the same skills, having the same movie nights on Saturday nights. But I’m going home. Hopefully Aarti will have recollections of strumming my guitar while I change the chords when she’s older, and maybe she’ll develop and interest in music. Hopefully Anish will practice some of the dance moves I showed him and style tips I gave him and incorporate them into one of his future dance pieces. But who knows? I know I can only hope to have that much of an impact on their lives. I’m just another passerby. I can’t expect to change their lives, because I won’t.

The last day there, Veena had us talk to the kids about what our lifestyles in America looks like. Each of us generally work for own money, work for our own lifestyles, and that’s an idea that Veena’s is trying to get the older kids at that Marg to understand. So our 2-sum hour talk I think was somewhat beneficial. After the younger kids came back from school we sat and helped them with their English homework, I helped two kids with their Hindi homework (whoooaa-whooooaaaa, slow down big fella), then we just left. When the kids said ‘bhaiya, kal milenge’ (see you tomorrow) I had to respond ‘phir milenge’ (see you later), cause I wasn’t going to see them tomorrow. Most of the kids knew it was our last day, but it didn’t seem to bother them. From their perspective, they probably wouldn’t have minded us staying, but they knew we weren’t going to be there forever. Rumpi and some of the other kids gave us thank you cards written on English, that was so sweet.

So know that I’m back in the states, I’m seeing more and more how much we take for granted in the states, and I’m trying to make a conscious effort to reduce, reuse, and recycle, like the motto in the motherland goes, to help me see everyday how much we do take for granted. Like running water. We stayed the night at Karm Marg for two nights while we were in India, and our first night there, Bablu and Anish, two of the older kids, were joking about how they were going to make us feel like we were staying at a five-star hotel. So Wendy, the soccer mom in our group, was saying how she wanted a facial, a massage, a manicure and pedicure, a face mask. And one of the kids replied, ‘running watter! We give you running water!’ and he was dead serious. Talk about different ideas of luxury… Some of the kids at the Marg can do all their laundry and take a bath is two buckets of water, cause any more water would mean more trips to the well, and less water to do more important things with, like cook. Our washing machines and showers just pour gallon after gallon of water to serve the same purpose. The sanitary system, too. In the states we have little garbage baskets that we can throw waste in, and magically on every Tuesday it disappears into never-never land. In India, you have to deal with the waste you create, cause if you don’t it ends up on the curb in front of your house indefinitely, or until the local cows, pigs, and dogs chew through it. So because of the luxury of garbage men we have in the states, we use way more plastic than we really need too, and we throw everything away. So I’ve been trying to be more conscious about when I use plastic bags. I keep a little jutt bag in my backpack know, and whenever I would use a plastic bag I’m just using that. And I’m trying to create azs little waste as possible. I try to use as little water in the shower and sink as possible, turning the faucet off when I lather up, and keeping the pressure as low as I can, so as to use a LITTLE less water.

By the sheer fact that I live in the US and my taxes pay for the things they do, some would say that I’m privileged. I’m not totally sure that’s the case. ‘Privilege’ is relative to your perspective, and what your society values as necessity and opportunity. And these two things are defined differently in the states than in India, so a comparison is not adequate. Just because I have running water, a sanitary system, and electricity doesn’t mean I’m more privileged than people in India. Saying so would mean that the US and India judge necessity and opportunity by the same standards, which we don’t. Both India and US have a need for water. But in the states, if my water get’s turned off, my options for getting water is very limited. I can’t grab a bucket and go to a well to fill it up and bring it home, even if I wanted to. My local society wasn’t built to do that. It was built to provide running water for most households. So the need for water in both environments get fulfilled, but in different ways, and neither way is better than the other.

In my opinion, trying to determine which culture is ‘better’ is the basic problem with anyone experiencing a different culture. I know it was mine. And perhaps that’s one of the basic issues behind ‘culture shock.’ And that’s the problem I have in communicating my experience in India with others. When I tell them what I’ve seen, the instinctual response is ‘wow.’ Like ‘man, I didn’t realize we have it so much better off that they do in India.’ No, no, no! That’s not my point! India is not better, it’s not worse, it’s just different, and that’s all it is. India is beautiful in so many ways that the US is not, and likewise, the US is beautiful in a lot of ways India is not. It’s just different.

Where: Delhi, The Hub, Internet Cafe
Local time: 6:30p
Chicago time: 7:00a

Whew… So the past few days I haven’t had a chance to grab a computer at all. But that’s a GOOD thing. There has been so much going on, I’ve been experiencing and feeling soooo many things, I don’t even know where to begin.

Before I start getting into day-to-day details, let me just say I am having a great time here. Me and my little Karm Marg group are bonding with each other really well, with the kids really well, and with the organizers of our NGO really well. I have learned so much about myself, and thought a lot about all the bullshit that we learn in Chicago that defines happiness and success, and I’ve been seeing ….

Ok hold on, the girl next to me, a local, just had her cell phone ring, and her ring was In the End, by Linkin Park. Lol, helll yea…...

Anyway, I’ve been seeing the conditions of the society that my ancestors lived in that helped form the ideals and morals that my people still hold dear to them today. I’ve also learned that I don’t know half of what I need to know to call myself Brahmin. I live my with the intention of doing good, and not harming others, but I’ve been so ignorant about so many things, and that’s totally a result of the comfort that living in America has provided me. I have so many luxuries that I don’t even acknowldge everyday. Like running water, heat, a roof, my health, my hands, my mental and physical capicity, all of which I am totally taking for granted.

Being in the environment I’m in right now, it is great to be able to think about my ownlife as critically as I have, but the real challenge lies in taking what I learn in this trip, and truely realizing it sitting in my cubicle on the 15th floor at work, laying is my bed is a nice heated room in the burbs. I have to stay consious of all the things I learn on this trip, because I realization is only actual if it carries with you.

So what the heck have I been doing in Delhi??

Last Thursday we had a meeting with our group and talked about our organizations, and issues with women in India as compared with issues in America that we’ve observed in our organizations. Afterwards, we hooked up with the girl who runs Sangini, a local lesbian support NGO, and we went OUT. That was awesome, and kind of odd at the same time. We went to her house/office where she lives and the group is run out of. And apparently Thursdays are ‘dry’ nights in Delhi, so the bars don’t serve any liquoah. So we chilled at the house and drank King Fishers and Blue Moons, the headed out to the bar. I was on Mother’s on Rush and Division. Seriously. They American music magazine covers all over the walls (sorted by decade) and they were playing all American music. The dude was spinning CDs, and he only had two hip hop CDs, Nelly’s Greatest Hits, and 50 Cent. It was crazy. But it was fun as hell too, I totally bonded with some of the people in my group, they were giving me shit cause apparently the only other people in the bar we’re eyein me, and we were all dancing and chillin. It was cool. Then we headed back, and I crashed and got ready for the next day.

Friday was awesome. After the Marg, we went to Nizzamudin, a slum community where two people in our group our working, and checked out a qawwali concert. We met outside of where the concert was going to take place, and then got a short tour of the community. Compared to the Marg where my group is working, this place was CRAZY. The street were small, packed as hell with sellers, kids running around screaming ‘hello!’, and just like the rest of the city, everything was DIRTY. We went to this dudes house and met his mom andhad some tea, and had a pretty uncomfortable experience there, then headed off to the qawwali concert. And that was AWESOME. It was group of guys, all mostly younger with one really old guy on harmonium leading the group. I was totally able to record it onmy minidisc and stuff, and the recording turned out SWEEEEEEEEEEET. So I was excited about that. Then afterwards we came back, just chilled and talked and crashed.

Saturday we did some sightseeing.We went to the Lakshmi Temple right by the Y, and that was beautiful. It was all open, the murtis (statues of Gods) were gorgeous, it was awesome. In the room that had the Lakshmi murti in it, there was a singer with a harmonium and an old guy on tabla’s, that was awesome. Then we went to Bahai Temple, and that was amazing. The temple was in the shape of a giant lotus, a GIANT LOTUS. It was NUTS. And inside was gorgeous. They didn’t allow any talking inside, and I swear, it was the only moment of silence I have heard since I stepped foot hear. That was totally beautiful, and made the temple that much more humbling.

After the Bahai temple, me and the Marg group went over to the Marg because the organizers of the group were going to take us to a Bird Sactuary. How cool is that? We have been having such a great time with our organization, and I am so blessed to have the opportunities that I do. So we went over to the Marg and Dev, the main dude, didn’t get there himself til pretty late. So we chilled with the kids and stuff. Playing with the kids this past week has been awesome. I played guitar with them one day. That was AWESOME. Basically I gave them the pick and let them stum while I change chrods. I also demonstrated a feeble attempt at playing Hindi songs… This one girl Aarti is such a cutie. I’d start singing a song, them do my usual mumbling when ever I didn’t know the words, and she’d just keep on going like a machine in total monotone. Lol, it was awesome. We’ve also been dancing a lot. I taught a few of the older kids some bhangra moves (ho chakde phate) and the younger kids just groovin with. This one girl Tara is hysterical. She totally knows all the moves straight the movies and while she’s dancing and lip-singing the songs, her eyes are looking up while she mentally preparing herself for the next move, and she’s totally getting into it and everything! Lol, its awesome.

So anyway, we ended up just crashing at the Marg that night, which totally isn’t what we were expecting, cause we were planning on leaving for the bird sactuary that night and sleeping in a hotel. But it was cool, we crashed and then left at like 4a Saturday morning. We slept in the car on the way there a lot. But we totally saw sunrise over mustard farms on the way that. That was AWESOME. I’ve never seen a mustard famr before, and my gradfather, and now my uncle run a mustard farm in Gujarat. So that was awesome to see. We got some breakfast right outside of the sactuary, then went on in. In the Bird Sanctuary was amazing. Similar to the Bahai Temple, it was completely different in the sactuary that it was in the rest of the states. There was no pollution, it was all green and blue, and clean and quite. It was great. We rented some riksha that rode is around and pointed out birds to us, then hopped off and hiked around a little. It was really cool, there were some spots where we just saw a bird or two, like king fishers, watersnakes, eagles, and stuff, and other spots where a bunch of birds were mating, so there were a TON of them. One spot just had a ton of storks. It was awesome. I also saw a python, and an antelope. And it wasn’t like a zoo. Like, this was a spot that was clean and filled with water that birds naturally flocked to in the winter, and the government sactioned it off so no one would fuck with it. Granted, and the time the mugal king wanted a place to hunt, today its strictly a natural preserve, and that’s awesome.

Then we were heading back, and we drove though Rajastan which was gorgeuos. I can’t wait for our whole group to go there next week. We also passed though a town where Krishna is said to have raised a mountain to protect a bunch of people from the rain. There was a temple there, and there must have been something going on there cause the streets were mobed with people.

I’ll continue later, cause my hour at the cafe is almost up, and we don’t want any problems with the locals, Kill Bill style…. lol.

Oh also, I found out this morning that I might have lice from the kids at the Marg. That totally sucks.

Where: Delhi, YMCA
Local time: 11:00p
Chicago time: 11:30a

Okay, today was interesting. I did my usual thing, got up, washed up, and headed to the Mandir. But today, the three other girls in my Karm Marg group wanted to go with me, just to check it out. So that was cool. We met downstairs of the Y at about 7:45a and headed out. It wasn’t as packed as it was yesterday, so that was refreshing. I got to do my thing in its entirety.

So we got back and had breakfast, I went up and got my bag, and we were off. This time on the way in I got a ton of pictures. I haven’t had a chance to download any of them, but I will soon, cause I have a ton of pictures now.

Today at ‘The Marg’ was cool. The first half of the day was totally BLAH though. Dev, the guy we spent the whole day with yesterday, wasn’t there at all. So Veena, the woman in charge, didn’t seem to know what to do with us. So we sat with the kids and helped them put these New Year’s Day cards they’re putting together, together. That was cool and all, cause we were totally chillin with the kids, singing Bollywood songs and everything, but we just didn’t feel we were contributing as much as we could have. We had lunch at 1a, and afterwards, things started rolling. One of the girls taught the kids how to hacky sack, so while they were doing that, the rest of us and the older kids were trying to figure out how to make a hacky sack out of the materials they had handy, which was burlap and daal beans, which works out perfectly. I also kind of taught one of the kids how to make a cube, and one of the other girls made this burlap bean bag thing and taught the kids a game she knew with in. So the afternoon was awesome. We really felt we connected with the kids a bit more, and after doing so, Veena was all about us. So that was cool.

We got back and we were POOPED as usual. Me and a few of the other girls in our group went out the sitar store my guruji recommended me to go to. I met the owner of the store, who’s the grandson of one of the five major sitar makers in India. That was pretty damn cool. We talked a bit about sitars and music, and I put money down on a new sitar. HELL YEA. It’s going to be damn sweet. I can’t even explain it, it’s beautiful. He’s totally making it, so it’s not going to be ready until soon before I leave, but I’m excited, it’s going to be awesome.

Afterwards we went to a restaurant in a posh little hotel down the road, and was cool. Me and two other girls each got a different Indian beer, and had a little ‘tasting.’ It was cool. I got a little blitzed, just a little, so it was cool. We got back, and I’m in the lab of the Y right now leaving this entry in, ready to CRASH.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’m wondering if the kids will already have a ton of hacky sacks already made. That would be hysterical, but I could totally see it happening, cause they were so excited by the idea.

Where: Delhi, YMCA
Local time: 10:30p
Chicago time: 11:00a

Holy crap. My second day in India was awesome! I woke up at about 7a, and did the same thing I did the day before. Washed up, and headed to the mandir. The mandir by the YMCA is the Hanuman Mandir, and I guess Tuesday is Hanuman’s day, cause the place was PACKED. I didn’t get a changed to get any prasad (blessed food) or anything. There was a line getting into the place, and once I was in, it was just crazy. So I did my thing, watered down a bit, and then headed back to the Y.

Day 2 was our first day at the locations of the NGOs we were working with, and I am so thrilled with the one I’m involved in. Before I talk about it, damn, the drive there was CRAZY. It’s about an hour and half away from the heart of Delhi where we’re staying, and its out in the middle of NO WHERE. Which is awesome, don’t get me wrong. But on the way there, we went from urban Delhi, president’s palace’s and what not, to total villages, to farm land out on dirt roads. Even though it was from a maruti car window, rather than being on the soil, the change was awesome to see.

So the organization I’m working with is called Karm Marg, and basically it’s a commune for street children who are seeking to better themselves. The country’s problem with street children is pretty evident to anyone walking the streets. Kids are always coming up to you asking for money, and most of the time, they’re ‘working’ for a pimp or their parents just doing what they’re told to channel money back to them. So these kids live on the streets, get no education, and live in horrible situations with no opportunity to better themselves. Karm Marg is a place with open doors for any street children to come. They offer a place to stay, food to eat, and the two main people who run it Dev and Veena, teach the children craftswork, like carpentry, sewing, and papermaking so after they leave the commune, they can hopefully support themselves from the skills they’ve learned.

Dev was absolutely amazing. He was an older, modest, humble, dude, with a long white beard, and long white hair in a ponytail wearing red sweatpants and a black fleece. We basically spent the day with him, learning all about the organization, what they do, and what impact they have on the kids. We were at a new location just built within the past six months, and it was beautiful. There were roosters and dogs running around, peacocks on the farmland, and bright colored flowers everywhere. Compared to the rest of India we saw on the drive in where the air and the ground were all brown, this was like heaven. We had tea, matar paneer (cooked peas and cheese in tomato sause, water, oil, and spices), checked out the view from the roof. It was awesome, and I am sooooooo excited and the opportunity to work here. The kids are ADORABLE. Two of the other girls I was with braided some of the girl’s hair, and I, yes *I * helped a kid through his Hindi workbook, and I don’t know a lick of Hindi. I was doing alright though. I hope….

Then we came back in a cab, and the hour and a half drive again was CRAZY.

We had a group meeting with all of the students in the evening once we all got back. That was kind of a downer, because some of the groups just had really bad experiences. Like one girl was stuck in an office in the back of a building stuffing envelopes and doing data entry all day, and had no interaction with anyone. That SUCKS, cause you might as well be back in Chicago if that’s the case, right? So, two of the other groups had negative experiences, which sucked. But hopefully tomorrow they’ll get better. And that helped me realize it’s not going to be all smooth sailing for us. So we’ll see what the next few weeks bring us.

After the meeting we went over to Hanuman Market, which are the street vendors outside the Hanuman Mandir, and that was STILL crazy, there was still a line of people out the door of the Madir, and the alleys where the street vendors were was crazy. I didn’t get anything, but two of the girls got Mehndi done of the hands. I saw it the next morning and it looked AWESOME. After I got back, a bunch of the girls were going to check out a queer night that one of the bars down the road from the Y has every Tuesday. I was gonna go with them just to check it out, but I ended up not going cause I was BEAT. The next day I found out they didn’t go either cause they were so beat too. Plus two of the girls couldn’t hold their own beer cause they had mehndi all over their hands. Worthless.

Where: Delhi, YMCA
Local time: 6:00p
Chicago time: 6:30a

Oh my God. So far my trip to India has been absolutely amazing, and I’m not even done with my second day…

Yesterday was our first full day here. We got in the night before at like 1a after our flight had been delayed an hour departing from Amsterdam. That flight was way better than the first. My first impression of Delhi was familiar, but at the same time foreign. All the signs were in English and Hindi, and there was classical violin music playing in the airport terminals. I recognized that everyone was talking Hindi, but I can’t understand a word everyone’s saying. We changed our money at the currency exchange at the airport, which was just a dude in a freestanding booth. Then hopped on the bus to the YMCA.

The roads in Delhi are crazy. Over the past two days there have been so many things that have told me that India is completely chaotic, but somehow, everything still seems to work... There are lane markings, but no one follows them. Motorcycles are weaving in and out of traffics. Auto rikshas are weaving in and out of traffic. Cars are weaving in and out of traffic. Trucks and buses are weaving in out of traffic. It’s totally nuts. Over and above that, since the sidewalks are filled with either piles and piles of crap or street merchants, pedestrians are walking on the streets. Plus, every now and then, a street merchant will set up shop right on the road. So the streets are completely crazy compared to America, where things are completely orderly, i.e., everyone stays in the their lane, signals for a lane change, usually, etc. The sides of the roads that aren’t sidewalks are just brown dirt, with occasional piles of trash. There’s generally not any grass on the side of the road. So when Dhruba told me before I left ‘I’m about to set foot on the soil of the motherland,’ he was being literal. My bad.

We got to the YMCA at about 2a, and crashed right away. I slept like a log, and woke up in the exact same position I fell asleep in at about 7a, 45 minutes before the alarm I set off on my cell phone. So I got up and started the water heater. In our rooms, we each have our own individual water heaters for the showers that take about 30 minutes to warm up. So I started the water heater, then called my guruji who was in Delhi and planning on leaving that evening, so I wanted to hook up with him, take his darshan, and hopefully go with him to pick me up a sitar. He was in a meeting all day, so that ended up not happening. But he hooked me up with the number of sitar maker in Delhi that makes good quality stuff, so I’ll be hookin that up.

After I showered and washed up, I walked over to the Hanuman temple that’s about 3 blocks away. I went by myself, and it was like my first real experience of seeing Delhi. I knew it was close to where were staying, but I didn’t know exactly where it was, so I got directions from the guy at the front desk of the Y, then direction from another dude on the street, then another dude, then went to another mandir (temple) and got directions from them. Anyway, I eventually made it there, and it was nice. They had different little rooms devoted to different Gods kind of scattered in no particular order, which again is a testament to the choatic mentality here in India since in America mandirs have distinctly defined spaces for each murti (statue of God) that are well labeled, etc. But it was nice; it felt good going to the temple as the first thing I did in India. On the walk there, I saw people that looked like they were homeless chillin on the sidewalk everywhere. None of them were begging, they were talking to each other, talking to riksha drivers, cooking breakfast on a fire they made on the sidewalk, and just chillin. There were also dogs everywhere, just scavenging the sidewalks for food.

I got back and had breakfast with the group. I didn’t think I was going to wake up, so I told the girls across the hall to wake me up at 7:45a. I ended up being out the door by 8a, and I left a not in the key hole of the door (since all the keys here are totally oldschool keys like in Bugs Bunny cartoons), and I took the note out when I left. Apperently, they started trying to wake me up after I left, so they were pounding on the door, calling my room, and everyone in our group seemed to know that they were trying to wake my up, and I wasn’t even there! So when I got back from the mandir and sat down for breakfast, everyone thought I had just woken up... So that was funny.

After breakfast, we hopped in the bus and did some sightseeing. We saw India Gate, and wen to the Bengali market, which is a section of town that just has a bunch of shops. I got some dried indian snacks, like the kind my buddy Sachin at work is always bringing in. I got this big bag of it that will probably last my the rest of the trip. Hell yea. I also got a phone card so I could call home, and a 20 pack of batteries, which I later realized were a bunch of funk batteries cause they’ve been dying on me within hours, laaaaaaaaame. Afterwards, we visited the tomb of an old Mughal king, which was really nice. It’s architecture looked a lot like the Taj Mahal, but it was made in all red stone and stuff, and there was this big garden surrounding it, so it was really nice. Then we had lunch at a cultural center, and went to he Lodi Gardens, which again was the tomb of an old pre-Mughal king. There we met Sunny and Meeta, two people who our professors have been working closely with in setting up our work with Non-Government Organizations (NGOs). They gave us a history of NGOs in India, how they go started, how they work in society socially and politically. That was pretty interesting.

Then we came back, had dinner, and a few of us when walking to look for an internet café, and that failed miserably because it was election day here in Delhi, and that means it was a state holiday. That means all the stores are closed and no one goes to work. That’s really cool, cause it really encourages people to be involved in politics, even though it completely corrupted… But we got to walk the streets a little, that was awesome. All day whenever we go out, we always get approached by kids begging for money. All they know how to say is ‘hello’ and ‘money’ and they are completely relentless. But its like they not even begging for money, they’re begging for some type of acknowledgment that they actually exist in my world. Like, some kids never paid any attention to me until I made I eye contact with them. Once that happened, that was like a way of me telling them that I acknowledge them as being a person, and since they don’t get that from anywhere else, and they just latch on to you and follow you and beg for money. So this kid kept following my and pulling on my shirt and stuff, so I eventually said sternly ‘paisa nati, ja, ja, ja!’ which means ‘I have no money, go, go, go!’ He went away. Which means he stopped ‘bothering’ me, but what the hell is that worth? He’s still out there…

After not finding a single café the was opening except one down a dark doorway that looked REALLY shady, which we decided against, we came back and I was so tired and jetlagged at the point, which was 8p, that I just crashed…

I woke up this morning, our second day here, and I did the same as yesterday, showered and cleaned up, went to he Hanuman Mandir, and had breakfast. But today was our first day working. And oh my god, today was such an amazing experience. I have to get back to the group right now though, so I’ll get back later tonight and talk about it. But I am so excited about working with this organization for the next two weeks. It’s going to be absolutely amazing. I’m moved, I’ll tell you all about it soon!

Where: Amsterdam Airport, Communication Centre
Local time: 8:00a
Chicago time: 12:00a

Aight kids, it’s ALMOST on…

I’m at the airport in Amsterdam right now, in a little internet cafe thing. The flight here SUCKED. I’m used to cramped seats on planes, but this was crazy. It was so cramped on there. And this kid behind me kept kicking the back of my chair, and putting his feet up against it and just PUSHING. So that was frustrating…

But half of the flight is over. We’ve got a four hour layover, then we’re off to the motherland. I was sitting next to two other students on the study abroad program on the way there. So we got to talk and get to know each other a bit. So that was cool, cause I don’t really feel like I know anyone on the trip yet. That will all change soon though, I’m sure.

I tried testing out my minidisc/microphone set up on the plane on the way here, but I couldn’t hear a thing over the loud airplane hummmmmmmmmmm. So I’ll proly hit that up on the layover.

I can’t tell you too much about Amsterdam, outside of the fact that the airport looks pretty cool. They’ve got these lounges with cool looking chairs that look comfortable as hell compared to the airplane seats. So I’m totally gonna hit that up. Everything’s white and really airy. And all the announcements they make are in a bunch of languages. But in the international terminal, that’s to be expected, I guess. I heard an announcement before that said ‘Mr. Blah Blah Blah travelling from Dubai to New York, please blah blah blah.

Well I’m off… I’m almost out of time and my computer’s binging…