So I've been in India a solid five months now, but I just now seem to be getting the hang of things.
I told Amitava Kumar (of Vassar fame - he was my English major adviser) last week at the Jaipur Literature Festival (it was surreal to see him there) that I loved living in Jaipur, and I thought it was just gonna be one of those things you say to people to move the conversation along, you know, a blatant lie, but I learned as it came out of my mouth that it was true.
I understood 40% of the last movie (3 Idiots [SO GOOD]) I went to see.
I'm understanding a lot more of what the teachers try to say to me, even if I don't understand every word.
Our maid-cook, Sumin, is consistently challenging me with newer and more complicated topics of conversation, and while I don't understand every word, I'm understanding her *and responding successfully*.
I'm reading Devanagari MUCH more rapidly now. Like unless it's a combination of letters I rarely ever see together, I can read it steadily aloud. (Though I do need to pay attention when I think I know words, cause, you know, skimming in a language you don't know makes you sound stupid in class.)
My writing is moving more towards spelling mistakes and postposition confusion between को (to) and से (with, by, from, whole lot of other things). There is also the occasional "whoops" usage (forgetting to use the subjunctive with हो सकता है [it's possible], confusing word order when it comes to भी [too]), but it's much much better than it was.
And my best moment yet, and the most random, and the prompt for this post, was a conversation I was having with an autorickshaw-wala. I was speaking to him rapidly, mostly because mistakes can be glossed over when you speak quickly, which helps. He asked me why I told him to go through the neighborhood next to ours in order to get to ours. I told him that either way we went, it would be out of the way, because I pretty much lived in a straight line from where we were. And I had no idea what language I said it in. For a brief, beautiful five seconds, I spoke and thought in Hindi, which was of course the language my brain had chosen. And at the end of the ride, it legitimately sounded like he was praising my Hindi, instead of giving it lip-service like most folks do.
Holy crap. I think I'm actually learning this language. Another catch-up post later, probably tomorrow.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Tuesday, December 29, 2009
It's not over yet...
Just got back from Fatepur Sikri, and the "remnants" of Akbar's "abandoned" city.
Before that, was in Agra at the Taj Mahal.
In about 7 hours, I'm headed to Delhi to visit a friend and some museums and probably pass out for several hours.
From Delhi, I'll hopefully be going straight to Udaipur, to see just how pretty it is. (I've heard lots of stories.) If the trains don't work out, I won't go, but between the foreign quota and the three-day release tickets, I should manage to make it on the train from Delhi to Udaipur and the train from Udaipur to Jaipur.
And if everything works out, I will get back the day before classes start again.
...Wish me luck!
Before that, was in Agra at the Taj Mahal.
In about 7 hours, I'm headed to Delhi to visit a friend and some museums and probably pass out for several hours.
From Delhi, I'll hopefully be going straight to Udaipur, to see just how pretty it is. (I've heard lots of stories.) If the trains don't work out, I won't go, but between the foreign quota and the three-day release tickets, I should manage to make it on the train from Delhi to Udaipur and the train from Udaipur to Jaipur.
And if everything works out, I will get back the day before classes start again.
...Wish me luck!
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Traveling!
Two posts in two days! Exciting.
So like I said, I went to Amritsar over Thanksgiving break with one of my friends from the Institute. It was one of the best trips I've been on, for a number of reasons, but mostly because I got to see Harmandir Sahib, or the Golden Temple. It was also kind of a whirlwind bit of fun, because I enjoy spending time with my classmates and this particular classmate is no exception.
We left late on Wednesday evening for the overnight train - he'd arranged the tickets a bit later than I would have liked, and the only seats left were in the Sleeper section of the train. Sleeper is kind of like riding on a public bus, only there are designated places for you to lie down, which is nice. But like a public bus (at least here), the windows don't exactly close, and while this was in November, it still got COLD during the evening. We'd gone shopping for bits and pieces of warm stuff, but I learned rather quickly that it was not warm enough. Anyway, we're supposed to get in around 10am Thursday (Thanksgiving day), but after a few delays and a few more delays, we pull into Amritsar at around 3:30pm.
After refreshing with some coffee and finding a place to stay, we walk to the Golden Temple. We cover our heads on the way in, and leave our shoes at the shoe check, both of which are required for entry into the temple complex. We washed our feet in the pool by the entryway, descended some stairs, and there in front of us was the temple.
I don't think I can describe it. I know, I know, I'm supposed to be a writer and able to describe these things, but it was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. I'll let the pictures do some of the talking, and Wikipedia do the rest. What we didn't learn until the following day was that the complex was mostly empty. The weekenders hadn't yet arrived, and we only waited two minutes or so to enter the temple itself. After wandering the temple, we came back out, sat for a while, and watched dusk settle over the complex. I was surprised how many animals were in the complex. A flock of barn swallows, or something similar, raced around chasing various insects hovering over the water. The fish in the Pool of Nectar ate liberally as well. And while there were no dogs, a cat followed us out of the complex and into the night.
Our hotel was quite nice and quite close to the Temple, a warm-clothes bazaar which we investigated for later shopping, and to a Dominoes. We wanted American food for our Thanksgiving dinner, so we decided to have pizza. It was delicious. Dominoes' sauce here is kind of weird, but I've gotten used to it. I do have pizza about once a month or so.
The next day, we lazed about for a bit, finished off our pizza for breakfast, and found Jallianwalla Bagh, a now-park which was the site of a massacre in 1919. Now there's an eternal flame (clearly sponsored by Indian Oil), a memorial to the martyrs, the martyr's well that some jumped in to escape the gunshots, walls still showing the bulletholes from over a century ago, and a lot of green space filled with people laughing and smiling. It's kind of surreal, but interesting. I would be interested in comparing this particular site to whatever the World Trade Center site turns into. It's interesting to see what nations make of their martyrs.
Then we went back to the Golden Temple and saw it in all its crowded glory. It's a bit of a different experience when it's filled with people, and when juxtaposed with the museum that we somehow missed on our first visit. The place is peaceful, even when crowded, but the museum is full of paintings and pictures of martyrs of the Sikh faith, usually actively being martyred. It paints the place in a whole new light, and I still wonder whether or not the museum was necessary for me to see. I think it was, to sort of shock me back to the realities that made this particular temple possible, but I wonder if I wouldn't have been happier with my experience without having seen it.
Following this, we picked up a lot of warm stuff (I grabbed a long sleeved shirt, two pairs of wool socks, a giant Kashmiri shawl, a jacket with a woolen hood, and a warm dupatta to match my dark kameezes and salwars. (It feels funny to pluralize those in English.) We sat down to dinner in a nice looking place, starving and ready to eat. Well, the whole day my traveling companion kept saying we should check our train tickets to make sure he'd gotten our departure time right. After we sat down and ordered, we looked, and the tickets were for 6pm. It was then 5:45pm. We quickly canceled our order, ran down the road for an auto, told him to go quickly, tossed him the fare, and ran for our train, arriving with a few minutes to spare. We managed to find food at the station in the form of chips and, a few stations down, box dinners, which while cold and kind of sketchy looking, were delicious given how hungry we were. I managed to stay warm this ride, having layered everything warm I'd bought onto my body. Still, it was touch and go when the shawl I was using as a blanket would slip out from under me. We arrived back in Jaipur on Saturday morning, with enough time to do all of our work before school started again on Monday.
Like I said, there are few of us here for the break, but while there were more people here, the five of us hopped in an auto and headed out to Galta, the Monkey Temple just outside of the Pink City. There are supposedly 6,000 macaques that hang out there, and a few langurs too. And let me tell you, all of them (save the langurs) are not afraid of people. Actually, people have more of a reason to be afraid of them, as they're both protected and occasionally aggressive. But it was a lovely hike, and I did get lots of pictures, so I'll post those later tonight.
So that's all the travel I've done in the hiatus of writing... but I did move out of my original place into a different place recently, trading a guesthouse for a flat and trading 7 or so housemates for two housemates. After the grief I was given about the first wedding party that came to the guesthouse, and another wedding party that came in November, and various parties that came in and out of the place, some of them violent (re: blood trails leading down the stairs) and some of them nearly violent (re: belligerently drunk Indian man yelling about something until 2am), and the sub-par food, and our crazy landlady, I decided that moving was for the best. I still have my own room, if not my own bathroom, and now I have my own water purifier, so I can have water whenever I want. I've been speaking more Hindi than I spoke at my old place as well, as our housekeeper often and actively engages us in Hindi. I also have my own kitchen that I've been putting to good use. I've been here for a little over a week and I've already made sugar cookies, pizza dough, pancakes, and delicious, delicious banana bread, all from scratch. My life, it does not suck.
Now that I'm settled, and the apartment is clean to my liking, and my laundry is clean enough as well, I've decided to take a few trips before this break is over. First, on Monday, I'm going to go with some friends to Agra to see the Fort, Fatepur Sikhri, and hopefully the Taj Mahal before we come back. Then, on Wednesday, I'm going to trek north to Delhi, find a hotel, and be a tourist for a few days by my lonesome. I'm hoping that there will be fireworks for the New Year. Then, if I can get up the gumption to travel alone (which not a few people have warned me against, but not a few people have also encouraged me to do), I'm going to Amritsar again, if I can find a timely train with which to do so. We'll see.
So no, I didn't spend Christmas lying on a beach in Goa, which was the original plan... but I think this worked out pretty well, too. And hey, there's going to be a trip to Goa in February with classmates... so I can lay on a beach when it's actually warm outside.
And before that, later in January, there are like six of us talking about going to Varanasi (Benaras) to see the Ganges. (I think the tickets were already purchased? Maybe? I should look into that.)
Heh. I'm on vacations and looking forward to more vacations. Maybe I should do a little more Hindi studying to temper myself.
So like I said, I went to Amritsar over Thanksgiving break with one of my friends from the Institute. It was one of the best trips I've been on, for a number of reasons, but mostly because I got to see Harmandir Sahib, or the Golden Temple. It was also kind of a whirlwind bit of fun, because I enjoy spending time with my classmates and this particular classmate is no exception.
We left late on Wednesday evening for the overnight train - he'd arranged the tickets a bit later than I would have liked, and the only seats left were in the Sleeper section of the train. Sleeper is kind of like riding on a public bus, only there are designated places for you to lie down, which is nice. But like a public bus (at least here), the windows don't exactly close, and while this was in November, it still got COLD during the evening. We'd gone shopping for bits and pieces of warm stuff, but I learned rather quickly that it was not warm enough. Anyway, we're supposed to get in around 10am Thursday (Thanksgiving day), but after a few delays and a few more delays, we pull into Amritsar at around 3:30pm.
After refreshing with some coffee and finding a place to stay, we walk to the Golden Temple. We cover our heads on the way in, and leave our shoes at the shoe check, both of which are required for entry into the temple complex. We washed our feet in the pool by the entryway, descended some stairs, and there in front of us was the temple.
I don't think I can describe it. I know, I know, I'm supposed to be a writer and able to describe these things, but it was one of the most moving things I've ever seen. I'll let the pictures do some of the talking, and Wikipedia do the rest. What we didn't learn until the following day was that the complex was mostly empty. The weekenders hadn't yet arrived, and we only waited two minutes or so to enter the temple itself. After wandering the temple, we came back out, sat for a while, and watched dusk settle over the complex. I was surprised how many animals were in the complex. A flock of barn swallows, or something similar, raced around chasing various insects hovering over the water. The fish in the Pool of Nectar ate liberally as well. And while there were no dogs, a cat followed us out of the complex and into the night.
Our hotel was quite nice and quite close to the Temple, a warm-clothes bazaar which we investigated for later shopping, and to a Dominoes. We wanted American food for our Thanksgiving dinner, so we decided to have pizza. It was delicious. Dominoes' sauce here is kind of weird, but I've gotten used to it. I do have pizza about once a month or so.
The next day, we lazed about for a bit, finished off our pizza for breakfast, and found Jallianwalla Bagh, a now-park which was the site of a massacre in 1919. Now there's an eternal flame (clearly sponsored by Indian Oil), a memorial to the martyrs, the martyr's well that some jumped in to escape the gunshots, walls still showing the bulletholes from over a century ago, and a lot of green space filled with people laughing and smiling. It's kind of surreal, but interesting. I would be interested in comparing this particular site to whatever the World Trade Center site turns into. It's interesting to see what nations make of their martyrs.
Then we went back to the Golden Temple and saw it in all its crowded glory. It's a bit of a different experience when it's filled with people, and when juxtaposed with the museum that we somehow missed on our first visit. The place is peaceful, even when crowded, but the museum is full of paintings and pictures of martyrs of the Sikh faith, usually actively being martyred. It paints the place in a whole new light, and I still wonder whether or not the museum was necessary for me to see. I think it was, to sort of shock me back to the realities that made this particular temple possible, but I wonder if I wouldn't have been happier with my experience without having seen it.
Following this, we picked up a lot of warm stuff (I grabbed a long sleeved shirt, two pairs of wool socks, a giant Kashmiri shawl, a jacket with a woolen hood, and a warm dupatta to match my dark kameezes and salwars. (It feels funny to pluralize those in English.) We sat down to dinner in a nice looking place, starving and ready to eat. Well, the whole day my traveling companion kept saying we should check our train tickets to make sure he'd gotten our departure time right. After we sat down and ordered, we looked, and the tickets were for 6pm. It was then 5:45pm. We quickly canceled our order, ran down the road for an auto, told him to go quickly, tossed him the fare, and ran for our train, arriving with a few minutes to spare. We managed to find food at the station in the form of chips and, a few stations down, box dinners, which while cold and kind of sketchy looking, were delicious given how hungry we were. I managed to stay warm this ride, having layered everything warm I'd bought onto my body. Still, it was touch and go when the shawl I was using as a blanket would slip out from under me. We arrived back in Jaipur on Saturday morning, with enough time to do all of our work before school started again on Monday.
Like I said, there are few of us here for the break, but while there were more people here, the five of us hopped in an auto and headed out to Galta, the Monkey Temple just outside of the Pink City. There are supposedly 6,000 macaques that hang out there, and a few langurs too. And let me tell you, all of them (save the langurs) are not afraid of people. Actually, people have more of a reason to be afraid of them, as they're both protected and occasionally aggressive. But it was a lovely hike, and I did get lots of pictures, so I'll post those later tonight.
So that's all the travel I've done in the hiatus of writing... but I did move out of my original place into a different place recently, trading a guesthouse for a flat and trading 7 or so housemates for two housemates. After the grief I was given about the first wedding party that came to the guesthouse, and another wedding party that came in November, and various parties that came in and out of the place, some of them violent (re: blood trails leading down the stairs) and some of them nearly violent (re: belligerently drunk Indian man yelling about something until 2am), and the sub-par food, and our crazy landlady, I decided that moving was for the best. I still have my own room, if not my own bathroom, and now I have my own water purifier, so I can have water whenever I want. I've been speaking more Hindi than I spoke at my old place as well, as our housekeeper often and actively engages us in Hindi. I also have my own kitchen that I've been putting to good use. I've been here for a little over a week and I've already made sugar cookies, pizza dough, pancakes, and delicious, delicious banana bread, all from scratch. My life, it does not suck.
Now that I'm settled, and the apartment is clean to my liking, and my laundry is clean enough as well, I've decided to take a few trips before this break is over. First, on Monday, I'm going to go with some friends to Agra to see the Fort, Fatepur Sikhri, and hopefully the Taj Mahal before we come back. Then, on Wednesday, I'm going to trek north to Delhi, find a hotel, and be a tourist for a few days by my lonesome. I'm hoping that there will be fireworks for the New Year. Then, if I can get up the gumption to travel alone (which not a few people have warned me against, but not a few people have also encouraged me to do), I'm going to Amritsar again, if I can find a timely train with which to do so. We'll see.
So no, I didn't spend Christmas lying on a beach in Goa, which was the original plan... but I think this worked out pretty well, too. And hey, there's going to be a trip to Goa in February with classmates... so I can lay on a beach when it's actually warm outside.
And before that, later in January, there are like six of us talking about going to Varanasi (Benaras) to see the Ganges. (I think the tickets were already purchased? Maybe? I should look into that.)
Heh. I'm on vacations and looking forward to more vacations. Maybe I should do a little more Hindi studying to temper myself.
Friday, December 25, 2009
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas
...And Merry and Little it was.
I'm sorry I haven't written much in the past... um... while. This time of the year is not, by any stretch of the imagination, my favorite time of year - it's cold (even in Jaipur), it's a rush to finish finals (even in Jaipur), it's dark all the time (even in Jaipur), people suddenly forget how to drive now that white stuff is on the ground (Traffic is pretty terrifying all the time in Jaipur - you get desensitized, really), people forget to treat each other like human beings in their shopping, and it's cold. Usually, I spend it near fireplaces and surrounded by the people I love - it's the only thing that keeps me from thinking seriously about throttling some hapless shopper/driver.
This year was different, for a number of reasons, not all of them as obvious as "I'm in India".
First, I chose to be in India. Yeah, despite the fact that I still kind of want to throttle someone sometimes, I chose to be here for the holidays. My father, who was going to come and visit for the holidays, was detained by an emergency surgery; while he's recovered, his surgery left very little time for me to make other plans. My mother offered to come out here or bring me home anyway, and I was so, so, so close to coming home. I've been pondering why I didn't choose to come back. I've moved from my guesthouse into an apartment with two of my classmates, and both of them have left Jaipur; the moving took place right before I would have had to leave for the states, and I did kind of want some time to settle in. My neighborhood doesn't exactly have what you'd call a "holiday spirit" - Diwali was a few months ago - though it does have a pretty hilarious Christmas store, which I'm going to take pictures of in the coming days. But here are three of us left here, myself included, four if you count a friend who popped in for last night, tonight and tomorrow. Anyway, I had the choice - and I chose to stay here. It's not so bad being here, but I do miss home something desperate. Though not, it seems, desperately enough. I *have* desperately needed some time alone, so I guess I've gotten that, whether I like it or not.
Second, I've been having some social issues, both at home and abroad, most of which I'm at fault for. I've been accused, among other things, of being the worst person with people ever, and I've come to realize that, while maybe a little harsh, it's not over far from the truth. So I guess "improve people skills, and rapidly" is a sort of preemptive New Year's resolution for me. I'm actively working on it, so that works out.
Annnyway...
Today was kind of lovely. I woke up at about 10:30am, to a bouncing friend at the foot of my bed telling me to wake up so breakfast could start. I helped with breakfast, but was pretty much shooed out of the kitchen. We ate "ham" (it had some pig in it, I'm sure), home fries, spinach, and eggs with orange juice. Delicious. Then I napped for three hours, read for two, did some chores around the house, made plans for dinner, and finally went to dinner at Barbecue Nation. For those of you that have heard of Cena, it is remarkably like Cena. For those of you that haven't, it's a concept restaurant where they bring you meat. And more meat. And more meat. And other stuff. Until you tell them to stop. And there is also a buffet. And a desert buffet. Needless to say, I am stuffed fuller than a Christmas ham, though not on ham, but on chicken. And Naan. And pineapple and icecream and gulab jamun. Delicious.
I hope you all had (are having) a lovely Christmas as well!
(Also, if you hadn't noticed, there are new pictures up! I did go to Amritsar over thanksgiving - and it was LOVELY! I'll try to talk more about that tomorrow, and about my upcoming travel plans for the rest of the break.)
I'm sorry I haven't written much in the past... um... while. This time of the year is not, by any stretch of the imagination, my favorite time of year - it's cold (even in Jaipur), it's a rush to finish finals (even in Jaipur), it's dark all the time (even in Jaipur), people suddenly forget how to drive now that white stuff is on the ground (Traffic is pretty terrifying all the time in Jaipur - you get desensitized, really), people forget to treat each other like human beings in their shopping, and it's cold. Usually, I spend it near fireplaces and surrounded by the people I love - it's the only thing that keeps me from thinking seriously about throttling some hapless shopper/driver.
This year was different, for a number of reasons, not all of them as obvious as "I'm in India".
First, I chose to be in India. Yeah, despite the fact that I still kind of want to throttle someone sometimes, I chose to be here for the holidays. My father, who was going to come and visit for the holidays, was detained by an emergency surgery; while he's recovered, his surgery left very little time for me to make other plans. My mother offered to come out here or bring me home anyway, and I was so, so, so close to coming home. I've been pondering why I didn't choose to come back. I've moved from my guesthouse into an apartment with two of my classmates, and both of them have left Jaipur; the moving took place right before I would have had to leave for the states, and I did kind of want some time to settle in. My neighborhood doesn't exactly have what you'd call a "holiday spirit" - Diwali was a few months ago - though it does have a pretty hilarious Christmas store, which I'm going to take pictures of in the coming days. But here are three of us left here, myself included, four if you count a friend who popped in for last night, tonight and tomorrow. Anyway, I had the choice - and I chose to stay here. It's not so bad being here, but I do miss home something desperate. Though not, it seems, desperately enough. I *have* desperately needed some time alone, so I guess I've gotten that, whether I like it or not.
Second, I've been having some social issues, both at home and abroad, most of which I'm at fault for. I've been accused, among other things, of being the worst person with people ever, and I've come to realize that, while maybe a little harsh, it's not over far from the truth. So I guess "improve people skills, and rapidly" is a sort of preemptive New Year's resolution for me. I'm actively working on it, so that works out.
Annnyway...
Today was kind of lovely. I woke up at about 10:30am, to a bouncing friend at the foot of my bed telling me to wake up so breakfast could start. I helped with breakfast, but was pretty much shooed out of the kitchen. We ate "ham" (it had some pig in it, I'm sure), home fries, spinach, and eggs with orange juice. Delicious. Then I napped for three hours, read for two, did some chores around the house, made plans for dinner, and finally went to dinner at Barbecue Nation. For those of you that have heard of Cena, it is remarkably like Cena. For those of you that haven't, it's a concept restaurant where they bring you meat. And more meat. And more meat. And other stuff. Until you tell them to stop. And there is also a buffet. And a desert buffet. Needless to say, I am stuffed fuller than a Christmas ham, though not on ham, but on chicken. And Naan. And pineapple and icecream and gulab jamun. Delicious.
I hope you all had (are having) a lovely Christmas as well!
(Also, if you hadn't noticed, there are new pictures up! I did go to Amritsar over thanksgiving - and it was LOVELY! I'll try to talk more about that tomorrow, and about my upcoming travel plans for the rest of the break.)
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Happy Birthday, indeed.
First, thanks for all the lovely birthday wishes! I really appreciate them. My inbox was inundated with e-mails, and I'm getting cards in the mail everyday. It's almost like having my birthday every day for the last two weeks, which is kind of awesome. It was also really nice because I hadn't been in a very good headspace for a few days, and your wishes reminded me that I was, in fact, loved, and that there was a purpose to me doing all of this studying. I'm working (VERY slowly) on responding to all of you, even if it is just to say thank you and hi, so please be patient with me.
The day itself came after a "holiday" weekend where we celebrated Halloween here in Jaipur with a get-together at a flat, costumes, and enough candy to make anyone sick. My actual birthday-day was calm, but what I wanted. At school, the teachers brought in a cake to be eaten at lunch, because a friend of mine refused to stay silent on the issue. Anyway, apparently here in India, you get fed your first piece of cake, and while one of my teachers was kind enough to spoon it in my mouth gently, one of my classmates insisted it be done "right", and I ended up with a faceful of cake. (I'm looking for the pictures, because I hear they're pretty funny.) The package Mom sent me came in later that day (great timing!), containing, among other things, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and like eight pounds of candy. So that was wonderful to open. And because one of my friends had a subscription to the MLB website, I went to his flat to watch the last game of the World Series that night. Picture this: A die-hard Yankees fan, a die-hard Phillies fan, a rather snarky guy, and myself, all gathered around my computer watching the game. Hilarity ensued. So much that there were actually tears coming from my eyes at one point. And then on arriving home, I found that a friend had hijacked my toaster oven to cook me and the folks at our guesthouse delicious chocolate muffins. And then we played cards until like 2:30am. Just wonderful.
While getting up at 8am for class the next day was less than pleasant, most of my afternoon was spent getting ready for my birthday party, which was less a party-party than it was a dinner party, because we cooked a ton of food and spent a leisurely four hours consuming it. The toaster oven mentioned above was an integral part of this plan, and I used it to cook Macaroni and Cheese, which, most of you know, I am addicted to. It worked out wonderfully, and went well with the chicken patties, mashed potatoes, and apple crisp and ice cream that were also served. Another pretty laid back night, but another night that was exactly what I needed. I've been having a lot of those recently, and it's been kind of wonderful.
So I've hatched a few plans in the meantime, all of which involve traveling around India while I have the opportunity to do so. The first involves going to Amritsar with a friend of mine to visit the Golden Temple, among other things. While the details aren't quite sorted out yet, we're hoping to go pretty soon, just for a weekend or so. It'll be nice to get out of Jaipur for a while. I also have decided that I want to spend some/all of my winter break lying on a beach reading a book in Goa, so I'm in the middle of discussions with both my father and my friends as to how exactly that's going to happen. I also haven't seen Delhi or Mumbai, which are necessary to see before I leave; Delhi, at least, is a weekend trip by a fairly short train ride, so that shouldn't be too big of a deal, but Mumbai's a bit further. During spring break, maybe? I'll figure it out, but it's a lot to think about.
And that's pretty much where I am right now. The Hindi, as always, is coming along, slowly slowly, but steady steady. Starting to settle into the Jaipur life, but also looking to break the mold a little bit. Another day in India. (A fact which, while almost incomprehensible, is incredible, wonderful, and sometimes ridiculous, but totally worth it.)
The day itself came after a "holiday" weekend where we celebrated Halloween here in Jaipur with a get-together at a flat, costumes, and enough candy to make anyone sick. My actual birthday-day was calm, but what I wanted. At school, the teachers brought in a cake to be eaten at lunch, because a friend of mine refused to stay silent on the issue. Anyway, apparently here in India, you get fed your first piece of cake, and while one of my teachers was kind enough to spoon it in my mouth gently, one of my classmates insisted it be done "right", and I ended up with a faceful of cake. (I'm looking for the pictures, because I hear they're pretty funny.) The package Mom sent me came in later that day (great timing!), containing, among other things, Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy and like eight pounds of candy. So that was wonderful to open. And because one of my friends had a subscription to the MLB website, I went to his flat to watch the last game of the World Series that night. Picture this: A die-hard Yankees fan, a die-hard Phillies fan, a rather snarky guy, and myself, all gathered around my computer watching the game. Hilarity ensued. So much that there were actually tears coming from my eyes at one point. And then on arriving home, I found that a friend had hijacked my toaster oven to cook me and the folks at our guesthouse delicious chocolate muffins. And then we played cards until like 2:30am. Just wonderful.
While getting up at 8am for class the next day was less than pleasant, most of my afternoon was spent getting ready for my birthday party, which was less a party-party than it was a dinner party, because we cooked a ton of food and spent a leisurely four hours consuming it. The toaster oven mentioned above was an integral part of this plan, and I used it to cook Macaroni and Cheese, which, most of you know, I am addicted to. It worked out wonderfully, and went well with the chicken patties, mashed potatoes, and apple crisp and ice cream that were also served. Another pretty laid back night, but another night that was exactly what I needed. I've been having a lot of those recently, and it's been kind of wonderful.
So I've hatched a few plans in the meantime, all of which involve traveling around India while I have the opportunity to do so. The first involves going to Amritsar with a friend of mine to visit the Golden Temple, among other things. While the details aren't quite sorted out yet, we're hoping to go pretty soon, just for a weekend or so. It'll be nice to get out of Jaipur for a while. I also have decided that I want to spend some/all of my winter break lying on a beach reading a book in Goa, so I'm in the middle of discussions with both my father and my friends as to how exactly that's going to happen. I also haven't seen Delhi or Mumbai, which are necessary to see before I leave; Delhi, at least, is a weekend trip by a fairly short train ride, so that shouldn't be too big of a deal, but Mumbai's a bit further. During spring break, maybe? I'll figure it out, but it's a lot to think about.
And that's pretty much where I am right now. The Hindi, as always, is coming along, slowly slowly, but steady steady. Starting to settle into the Jaipur life, but also looking to break the mold a little bit. Another day in India. (A fact which, while almost incomprehensible, is incredible, wonderful, and sometimes ridiculous, but totally worth it.)
Monday, October 26, 2009
A month is kind of a long time
I promise not to be so long on the updates again, but I updated pictures a while ago, and I thought that could hold you over until I got the chance to write out what all I’ve been doing over the past month. I don’t think I’ll ever wait this long again, mostly because there’s so much to talk about, but also because I’m sure I’m going to forget something in all the time that’s passed. But what I can remember, I pass on to you.
So first, an amusing anecdote: since we had the day off on October 2nd for Gandhi’s Birthday, a fellow student and I decided that we wanted to go to a local café, to finish up work for the week and generally be good students. We might have sort of forgotten that it was Gandhi’s birthday, and thus hilarity ensued. First, we asked like four autorickshaws to transport us across town, which usually only costs us like 40 rupees, but we couldn’t get a better price than 50. Whatever, we really wanted to go, it was only ten more rupees, it’s fine. So we get to the café, and it’s closed. Great. The other student knows of another café, but he doesn’t know how close it is, so we ask for it and we get quoted 40 rupees. We should have known better than to take the first price, but we didn’t know how far away it was, and we wanted our caffeine, so we did it. The place couldn’t have been more than a two minute ride away (re: 20 rupees, give or take), so we overpay like hell. Whatever, now we have our caffeine. So we study, and we drink coffee, and we eat brownies, and now we’re ready to go. It should be about a 40-60 rupee ride back home, so we quiz all the autos outside the café, and I have a conversation (in Hindi) that goes something like this:
Me: I’m going to Raja Park.
Him: Raja Park.
Me: Yes, you know it?
Him: [short pause] Yes.
Me: What is the price?
Him: 40 rupees.
My mistake, of course, for the second time that day, was not being suspicious of a decent price. We get into the auto, and take a minute long ride – it *had* to be under a kilometer – and he points at a hotel whose name I can’t remember, but the first word, of course, is Raja, and the second word starts with a P. I facepalm. I literally slap my palm to my forehead. What follows is a seven minute conversation about how I said Raja Park, I didn’t say this place, he knows I said Raja Park, and how he knows that 40 isn’t a good price for this place and how we’re at most giving him twenty for his trouble. He, of course, comes back with something like “Fine, this isn’t where you want to go, then give me 100 rupees and I’ll take you to Raja Park.” And we were like “You have to be completely insane to think we’re giving you 140 rupees because you messed up.” So eventually, we agreed to pay him 20 for the ride to the hotel, and 50 for the ride back to Raja Park, because the other student was feeling generous, and there weren’t really any other autos in sight. All in all, we paid him 80, because the other student for some reason felt like this driver deserved another ten rupees for trying to rip us off more than once. But, to be fair, we did get home, and I did vow never to spend that much on autos in a day again. Lesson learned, I guess.
Less funny, and particularly exciting: We had a break for Diwali recently, and three other students and I decided we wanted to go to Darjeeling. One of the students had studied in Kolkata for a year, and wanted to visit a friend there while we were in that part of the country; she was able to secure us free lodging for our time in Kolkata, which was pretty wonderful. So Saturday the 10th, after our field trip to Jawahar Kala Kendra (JKK) and Albert Hall (there are pictures), we went to the airport, hopped on a plane, and arrived in Kolkata late that evening.
If I thought that Jaipur was a pretty big city, I was entirely mistaken. Kolkata is like New York to Jaipur’s Cincinnati: sure, it seems big when you haven’t seen anything else. I’m half-convinced that like New York, Kolkata doesn’t sleep, as there are people everywhere all the time. (This includes nosey neighbors, which are kind of useful for helping you find where you’re staying when you know you’re on the right street but can’t find the right doorway.) It’s also very dusty; at times, it actually felt difficult to breathe. Anyway, we spent most of our time in Kolkata in various restaurants that the student who had stayed here remembered, including a particularly delicious Italian restaurant with homemade sauce for their real-pepperoni pizza. We also got to go to a huge Oxford bookstore, at least relative to the one in Jaipur, where I spent entirely too much money on books like Milton’s Paradise Lost, Foucault’s The History of Sexuality, Suleri’s The Rhetoric of English India, and Dumas’s The Count of Monte Cristo, among others. The last thing we did before leaving for Darjeeling was visit our host’s current pet project, a fair trade organization called Freeset (freesetglobal.com) which allows women from the sex trade to get training and employment in another profession along with decent wages, free healthcare, and free childcare. It was a pretty cool place, and kind of makes me want to do something similar, at least for a little while. I don’t know that I could live in Kolkata, though.
Traveling to Darjeeling, the first leg by Non-AC Sleeper car train, the second by tiny oh-god-please-don’t-fall-off-the-mountain car, was kind of intense. Not sure I could do the train by myself, mostly because of the creeper who was across the way and one bunk down from me and kept staring at me and generally treating me like a piece of meat when he needed something, despite the fact that his wife and kid were in a bunk nearby. (Not sure I’ll ever get used to the treatment of women here, nor am I sure that I should have to, but that’s a topic for another post.) But Darjeeling… Darjeeling was beautiful, what I got to see of it. I got to enjoy the first day we were there, walking around by myself for a bit and trying new things with the group like butter tea (ew) and momos (kind of tasty) and hot toddys (I could really take it or leave it). The next day, though, I woke up, had breakfast, and pretty much went straight back to the hotel and the bed, where I slept off my high fever for the next 8 hours or so. (I have no idea what it was, but the saga still continues on that front.) The next morning, I was able to see the sun rise and hit the Himalayas while Buddhist monks chanted in the day, which may have been the coolest thing I’ve done ever (and there are pictures!). This was followed by a trip to the lovely Sri Mahakal Mandir, a temple absolutely covered in prayer flags, and then a (stupid) hike (for just having recovered from a fever) to the Tibetan Refugee Self-Help Center, where I started feeling ill beyond words again. Ended up going back to the hotel and sleeping until our taxi came to pick us up for the train to Kolkata, where I ended up spending the last day of the trip sleeping off my illness (again). Being sick three days out of a seven day trip is not what I’d call fun, but I enjoyed the trip, if I was a little starved for alone time by the end of it.
We got back Diwali morning, and spent the rest of the day in various states of unpacking and arguing with our landlady (more on that in a second). That evening, though, we went to a flat a few students are living in and got to watch the fireworks from the roof. For those of you that don’t know, Diwali is a holiday that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. The story I’d heard before coming here was that you lit lamps and fireworks in order to show Ram and Sita the way home from their crazy adventure. (Remember? Ram and Hanuman fought (and exploded) Ravana to win back Sita on Dusshera?) The story I heard while here was that the fireworks attracted Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity, to your home for the new year. I’m not sure which was correct, but the fireworks started at 6pm and didn’t end until well after 2am. It was kind of like living in a war zone, with all the explosions going on, and walking down the street you had to pay attention because grandfathers/small children/anyone who was brave enough to pick up a lighter was lighting and sending up or tossing fireworks into the street with no real regard to where things were going. It was beautiful, fun, and also a little scary, and two weeks later, we still see firework remnants in the streets.
As to our landlady, it seems that in our absence she booked our rooms for a wedding party. Now I don’t know much about Indian laws, but if I’ve paid rent for the month, I’m pretty sure you can’t turn around and sell my room to someone else, especially not if there are other open rooms or an entire open floor for you to put them in. Also, wouldn’t you want to please the people who are going to be paying you rent for the next six months rather than the next two days? Regardless, she tried to make us move in with each other or move out for two days while the wedding party came in and tore the place up. I kind of wish I would have moved for those days; I didn’t mind having a roommate because I knew that was temporary, but the wedding party ended up partying until 2am on a school night one of the evenings they stayed, and that was kind of annoying. I kind of want to move out – there’s another wedding party coming in the next month, and the internet here is occasionally shoddy, and I’m paying to not be bothered by these things, so I should get the choice. I also desperately want to be able to cook for myself, as half the time, I don’t like the food they serve here, and the other half of the time, I want to be able to store things in the refrigerator or get filtered water whenever I want. But moving at this point is kind of hard, as the people I’d want to move in with are leaving the program in December, and then I’d probably be back at this same place afterwards. When other folks leave, we’ll see what kind of openings there are, and whether or not other people want to move from their lodgings.
So yeah. Getting kind of sick of the food here. I’d like it more, except that half the time, they throw random peppers and onions and tomatoes into the dish, which is fine except that I’m a texture eater and each of those textures kind of makes me want to vomit, and really, I’ve been doing enough of that recently. I totally believe that health is directly related to what you eat, mostly because I’ve been eating fairly unbalanced meals: always heavy on the carbs, and not nearly enough green or protein-y things. I should eat differently, and I swear I try new things every day, but sometimes I can’t bring myself to finish them, even if I only grabbed a little bit. As such, my health has been crap, leading not only to stomach disturbances but to that weird fever thing, weird stiff joints, overly swollen lymph nodes, and a rash that covered my entire body for no apparent reason. I went to the doctor, who gave me orders for a blood test and prescribed me general antibiotics. The blood test seemed normal beyond a ridiculously low white blood cell count, which yes, can occur during illness, but I’ve recently begun to wonder whether or not it’s more common than that for me, given how often I get sick. I’m thinking about getting tested for auto-immune deficiencies soon, so we’ll see how that goes.
I’ve also sort of hit a wall with Hindi. Yes, I’m getting better, and yes, I’ve only been here for two months, and yes, it is my first time in India, and yes, I feel the need to be social in order to have at least some friends here, but I feel like I should be doing better than I am. I can be a procrastinator and a perfectionist at the same time apparently. So I’ve decided to try to work on the procrastination bit and kick my Hindi learning up a couple notches. It’s worked well so far – I’ve been sticking to my schedule for the most part, learning a set number of new words a day and spending so many hours on Hindi outside the classroom, be it watching a movie, studying pronunciation, doing homework, or visiting a local tailor, a friend of a friend’s and someone who enjoys speaking with students. I haven’t really seen any results yet (besides the new word retention, which is working out splendidly), but I’m hoping this will make me feel better about the effort I’m putting in, even if I don’t see anything out of it for the next month or so. We’ll see how it goes.
So yes, things are kind of crazy here, but I’m generally happy about life. There are moments everyday where I smile and laugh, and most importantly, I think, Hindi is still really interesting to me. I’m not really sure I could ask for anything more. Except for maybe more hours in the day, but who doesn’t wish for that?
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
When in Doubt, Burn it in Effigy
So now that I'm not panicking about getting work done, I've got a bit of time to talk about what I've been doing for... erm, the last two weeks. Sorry about that.
I've been kicking it into gear with Hindi learning - I'm not quite to the point where my brain's going to explode, but I've learned a TON so far. And I mean, being immersed is ridiculously intimidating (still) as well as ridiculously wonderful. So yeah, I go to class five days a week like in the States (actually, I only think I did that a couple times), but for four hours it's nothing but Hindi, and in different contexts.
For example, today I had a personal tutorial, grammar class, journal correction, and article discussion. For the personal tutorial, I chose to read more of a children's book about the Ramayana aloud- specifically how an unnamed person brought down the moon for a young Ram. It involved lots of me stuttering, trying to skim sometimes like in English (and failing five times out of six), and, surprisingly, a lot of me reading a few unfamiliar words in a row without stuttering. This is an improvement from the beginning of classes, where the only words I could really read quickly were the pronouns, and then only sometimes. Grammar class, at least today, I found I knew some answers without really thinking about it - simple sentences only, but they just came out of my mouth before I'd really processed them. Journal correction was a little (re: a lot) rougher, but I try to make at least one paragraph of my journal really risky - not really knowing what I'm doing, I experiment with constructions and read that paragraph in class, hoping that at least some of what I've done was right (and, most times, some of it is). Article discussion is odd, mostly because it's like an actual class, where we're expected to have read the material and have something to say about it. Today, despite struggling for certain words, I found myself thinking, "Oh, god, I've been talking forever. Let me shut up so my classmates can chime in." I mean, I'm sure I'm bound to hit a wall or a plateau or something soon, and my Hindi is still worse than that of a kindergartner, but in the meantime, I'm enjoying this great feeling while it lasts. (Also, amusingly relevant to my last post, my English is already deteriorating. I've had to change the phrasing in a few sentences [including this one] so everything would make sense.)
I've also been really social, which is odd for me, and yet not so odd at all, considering. Most weekday mornings, I bike to school, have class for four hours, have lunch for about a half hour with the other students, poll folks to find out what they're doing after school, decide not to do anything/decide to do something/attach myself to a group that's decided to do something (with their blessing, of course - our group's small enough that cliques haven't really formed [or at least haven't yet]), and go out to do something, maybe coming home in time for dinner. In the last two weeks, I have (among other things) played Garba (a sometimes-choreographed, sometimes-not dance that reminds me vaguely of ballroom dancing with sticks -bright colorful pictures with dancing), seen a Bollywood movie in theaters (Dil Bole Haddipa - it was GREAT), climbed to Narhargarh Fort and had "Slice" (Mango Juice!) at the restaurant on the top at night (the pictures from a high altitude in the evening/dark), watched part of a Ramlila that retold the Ramayana over the course of several nights (picture of the stage all in red), seen Jantr-Mantr (a ~300 year old outdoor observatory), gone through the Hawa Mahal (a palace built for royal women to watch the world from), briefly seen the City Palace (site of Maharajas past), gone to an engagement party thrown by other students for another student, and watched Ram kill Ravana on Dussehra. This was actually just yesterday (28 September); since Ram supposedly killed Ravana, the Demon King who stole Sita (his lady-wife) on this day, we got a reenactment of sorts. There was a 100-ft. effigy of Ravana and a smaller one of his son sitting in a park across the street from a student's homestay. From his roof, we watched a lot of fireworks get set off from the park (and almost got burned by one), and eventually Ram shot a flaming arrow into Ravana, setting off the fireworks concealed within the effigy and eventually burning the whole thing to the ground. (Hanuman took care of Ravana's son, whose name I was told but don't recall.) This happens every year, and it's sort of picturesque in its cycle: every year, the evil in the form of Ravana is purged from the social body with this festival where you turn a towering behemoth into ash, and when the evil has built up in society again, oh, hey look, it's Dussehra again, let's take care of buisness. Thus, the title of this post, derived from a conversation two Anthro majors and a Sociology PhD candidate had while watching the effigy burn. (Why don't we burn things in effigy in the States again?) Pictures, and a video if I took a small enough one, will be posted on Flickr for your viewing enjoyment.
Anyway, my whole existence here revolves around being social, but it doesn't feel like it - it keeps me busy and keeps me happy. At this juncture, I'm pretty sure I'd be depressed if it wasn't for the great people I'm surrounded by and surround myself with everyday. And they don't seem to be getting sick of me (though it is a concern of mine), so hey, bonus.
And since that's pretty much been my two weeks in a nutshell, and since I pretty much only covered positive things, allow me to list the things that, off the top of my head, I miss:
I've been kicking it into gear with Hindi learning - I'm not quite to the point where my brain's going to explode, but I've learned a TON so far. And I mean, being immersed is ridiculously intimidating (still) as well as ridiculously wonderful. So yeah, I go to class five days a week like in the States (actually, I only think I did that a couple times), but for four hours it's nothing but Hindi, and in different contexts.
For example, today I had a personal tutorial, grammar class, journal correction, and article discussion. For the personal tutorial, I chose to read more of a children's book about the Ramayana aloud- specifically how an unnamed person brought down the moon for a young Ram. It involved lots of me stuttering, trying to skim sometimes like in English (and failing five times out of six), and, surprisingly, a lot of me reading a few unfamiliar words in a row without stuttering. This is an improvement from the beginning of classes, where the only words I could really read quickly were the pronouns, and then only sometimes. Grammar class, at least today, I found I knew some answers without really thinking about it - simple sentences only, but they just came out of my mouth before I'd really processed them. Journal correction was a little (re: a lot) rougher, but I try to make at least one paragraph of my journal really risky - not really knowing what I'm doing, I experiment with constructions and read that paragraph in class, hoping that at least some of what I've done was right (and, most times, some of it is). Article discussion is odd, mostly because it's like an actual class, where we're expected to have read the material and have something to say about it. Today, despite struggling for certain words, I found myself thinking, "Oh, god, I've been talking forever. Let me shut up so my classmates can chime in." I mean, I'm sure I'm bound to hit a wall or a plateau or something soon, and my Hindi is still worse than that of a kindergartner, but in the meantime, I'm enjoying this great feeling while it lasts. (Also, amusingly relevant to my last post, my English is already deteriorating. I've had to change the phrasing in a few sentences [including this one] so everything would make sense.)
I've also been really social, which is odd for me, and yet not so odd at all, considering. Most weekday mornings, I bike to school, have class for four hours, have lunch for about a half hour with the other students, poll folks to find out what they're doing after school, decide not to do anything/decide to do something/attach myself to a group that's decided to do something (with their blessing, of course - our group's small enough that cliques haven't really formed [or at least haven't yet]), and go out to do something, maybe coming home in time for dinner. In the last two weeks, I have (among other things) played Garba (a sometimes-choreographed, sometimes-not dance that reminds me vaguely of ballroom dancing with sticks -bright colorful pictures with dancing), seen a Bollywood movie in theaters (Dil Bole Haddipa - it was GREAT), climbed to Narhargarh Fort and had "Slice" (Mango Juice!) at the restaurant on the top at night (the pictures from a high altitude in the evening/dark), watched part of a Ramlila that retold the Ramayana over the course of several nights (picture of the stage all in red), seen Jantr-Mantr (a ~300 year old outdoor observatory), gone through the Hawa Mahal (a palace built for royal women to watch the world from), briefly seen the City Palace (site of Maharajas past), gone to an engagement party thrown by other students for another student, and watched Ram kill Ravana on Dussehra. This was actually just yesterday (28 September); since Ram supposedly killed Ravana, the Demon King who stole Sita (his lady-wife) on this day, we got a reenactment of sorts. There was a 100-ft. effigy of Ravana and a smaller one of his son sitting in a park across the street from a student's homestay. From his roof, we watched a lot of fireworks get set off from the park (and almost got burned by one), and eventually Ram shot a flaming arrow into Ravana, setting off the fireworks concealed within the effigy and eventually burning the whole thing to the ground. (Hanuman took care of Ravana's son, whose name I was told but don't recall.) This happens every year, and it's sort of picturesque in its cycle: every year, the evil in the form of Ravana is purged from the social body with this festival where you turn a towering behemoth into ash, and when the evil has built up in society again, oh, hey look, it's Dussehra again, let's take care of buisness. Thus, the title of this post, derived from a conversation two Anthro majors and a Sociology PhD candidate had while watching the effigy burn. (Why don't we burn things in effigy in the States again?) Pictures, and a video if I took a small enough one, will be posted on Flickr for your viewing enjoyment.
Anyway, my whole existence here revolves around being social, but it doesn't feel like it - it keeps me busy and keeps me happy. At this juncture, I'm pretty sure I'd be depressed if it wasn't for the great people I'm surrounded by and surround myself with everyday. And they don't seem to be getting sick of me (though it is a concern of mine), so hey, bonus.
And since that's pretty much been my two weeks in a nutshell, and since I pretty much only covered positive things, allow me to list the things that, off the top of my head, I miss:
- All of you
- My cat
- Cheese (Words cannot describe how much I miss cheese, so think of how much I miss you all)
- Meat (I would think about doing [but not do] horrible things for a hamburger, or even chicken)
- Traffic laws (Proportional to how much danger I may/may not be in on my bike)
- Walking around in public without getting stared/whistled/yelled at
- Wearing shorts and a tank top in public (DO NOT DO THIS)
- Playing sports alongside menfolk
- Toiletpaper
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