Lucknow

This weekend (tonight) I'm going to Lucknow! It's a town in UP where our director, Nita Kumar, is from. It also was an old colonial center for the British, and is the capital of UP. I think it will be interesting and cool to go there, even though we'll only be there for about a day and a half really. I'll be back on Tuesday.
It would be the best if they have good birthday cake, but I've given up hope on attempts at Western sweets here (including chocolate). The best thing I've had here is definitely apple pie from an American recipe. Only 40 rupees, 60 with ice cream!

Morning-Time Adventures

This morning (after my run and shower, of course) at around 6:35, I decided to go on an adventure, which involves many fun photos, and beautiful scenes.

To begin, I found these pretty flowers. Pretty colors!

I then went to the a wishing tree at a small temple close to the school. Our guru, Naval Krishna sir, assures me that the tree is magical, and that you always will have your wishes granted there. I took a couple of pictures so you can understand what a roadside temple looks like:

I then went over to the ghat closest to us- that’s assi ghat in case you were wondering, and was going to stop and get my favorite tea (honey-lemon-ginger), but the shop wasn’t open yet. Most shops don’t really open until 8am or so, despite the fact that the streets are bustling at 7 or earlier depending on where you are. People are out the earliest closest to the Ganga and temples for religious reasons.

Here is a picture of the area close to the river.

Here is a sidestreet close to Assi.

A poster for the movie that we saw (Delhi Belly). Note the tagline, which is literally: S#!T happens.

I then walked around over to a mall, encountering the commercial side of life and a great sign.

I like to think of myself as a “professional,” personally.Definitely not professional though...

I also ran into some monkeys (always a mildly terrifying experience). In the olden days, monkeys were protected (just as cows still are), as they were considered to be the reincarnation of Lord Hanuman. However, to quote Jay (one of our friends here), “they became such a nuisance that no one believes that anymore.” He also thinks that people have stopped taking cow protection as seriously, and gives the examples of trucks that take cows out of cities. 

Here are some monkeys:

I also stopped by a very famous temple in Varanasi, but didn’t go in because I forgot my scarf to cover my head. I’ll go there soon though. I took some pictures, at least. 

I stopped by another temple as well, called the Shri Satyanarayan Tulsi Manas Mandir. As you can see from this picture, it’s made out of this beautiful white stone, and they have a small gardens. One interesting thing is that this temple is more of a Rama-Hanuman temple, and less of a Shiva temple, despite the fact that Varanasi is a Shiva place. The temple is also pretty new, being blessed in 1964. 

I also had a chance encounter with some greenspace, even though it was covered in trash (see foreground):

On the way back, I got to see a cow chilling in my favorite building, and I picked up some jalebi as a breakfast treat for everyone at work. Nom nom nom!

The Wheels on the Bus go Round and Round

Our bus is an interesting thing, which is to say there is never enough room on the bus. Generally there are about 5-10 more people than there are seats assuming that you seat the standard 2 person per bench. This means people are sitting in weird places and 3 to a seat (which there really is not room for), and that it gets hot in there. Let your imagination run free: here’s a picture of the bus. 

Social Studies

I am very interested by social studies in India for children, especially after class today.

Briefly, I’ve been teaching my seventh-graders about dialect, so today we learned the Banana Boat Song (aka Day-o, day-o, daylight come and me want go home…etc.). I was teaching them about the origins of the song, and we had a slight issue when I started talking about the slave trade. Some general confusion ensued, and I entered the realm of teaching world history to my seventh graders.

Afterward, I asked to look at a social studies book for grade 9 (from the teacher), and it had a lot of information about India (which makes sense), but there was almost no history. Instead, it mostly contained information about the different regions of India and seemed to be a primer on physical geography and climate/weather information rather than a text on social studies and history. I also talked to a couple people about their education, and they said that the emphasis was not really on history, with the exception of India’s national liberation struggle and India’s colonial history. He said that, outside of Indian history, they learned about the American Revolution, Russian Revolution, WWI, and WWII, which I find interesting. Of course, one cannot rely solely on one person’s memory of high school education, but I forgot about how wide the common knowledge gap really is here.

Musical Games!

 One thing I’ve been working on with the kids recently are clapping games. Besides the fact that little kids really don’t have great senses of rhythm, it is very enjoyable to watch both teachers and students alike struggle with the intricacies of Miss Mary Mack. Unfortunately, I realized that all of the words to Miss Suzy had a steamboat are entirely inappropriate for my second-and-third-graders.

The kids also really love the Hokey Pokey (who doesn't?), but we’re still getting the hang of left and right…

Photo-bombing

This is a little bit of a leftover from the weekend, but one interesting thing for me was the number of photos we managed to take with tourists. Since almost everyone in Pachmarhi was a Indian tourist, we took so many pictures with everyone (sometimes complete with ridiculous raingear, including plastic rain fedoras, shower cap-type things, trash bags, rain suits-yes shirts and pants, and plastic loafers) until our smiles were sore. At the end, our newly converted friend from the hotel also wanted a picture. He brought over a friend to take some pictures, and we also took a couple from my camera for your viewing pleasure.

Violet, our friend, Michelle and Me.

Bollywood Music

Over the weekend, I also had the great opportunity to get acquainted with some Bollywood hits, including some music videos. Here are some links for your viewing pleasure (note that many of the music videos are direct clips from the way that the songs appear in the movies):

Hale Dil from Murder 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Px7q1fLfG8E

Character Deela from Ready

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbnifKg0iSM

Bhaag Dk Bose from Delhi Belly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eh1O8a-vs0s

Phir Mohabbat from Murder 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3n0KPChPXB4

Oye Oye from  Double Dhamaal (in English if you’re into that) (I’ve also heard people sing this song in public)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppWguiDSLl8

I hate you (like I love you) from Delhi Belly (in English mostly)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-feLAiIHwcU

And an oldie but goodie:

Pain of Disco from Om Shanti Om (highly recommend)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV-4SOAsy40

 

Note: I also heard these on our hour and half long ride to and from Pachmarhi from the train station, so yes, they really are popular. And yes, I really do plan on listening to them and dancing around in the future. It’s going to be a blast.

Trains!

The Indian way of travel is by train (ironic, because Gandhi says in Hind Swaraj that the fast movement of trains accommodates evil rather than good). On the way to Panchmarhi, we travelled in 3AC, which means that there are 6 bunks per “compartment,” and air-conditioning! We travelled back in style in 2AC, which means there are only 4 bunks per compartment, allowing for each person to sit on his or her own bunk comfortably without hitting his or her head.

I should have taken some pictures of Varanasi Junction, a rough and crazy place, but I did not.

Another interesting point: trains here tend to run on “Indian time,” meaning that they are running on time if they are 20 minutes late. Although our train to Panchmarhi started at Varanasi (and thus started actually on time), we arrived in Panchmarhi an hour late. On the way back, the train was initially only 20 minutes late (thus, “on time”), and we arrived in Varanasi almost 3 hours late, which was fine by me because we were supposed to arrive at 4:30am.

Waterfalls

One of the most beautiful things about this region are the famous waterfalls. We saw a couple of these famous waterfalls, as well as other waterfalls in general. One interesting thing about the waterfalls here are the seasonal nature of waterfalls. Some waterfalls only exist during monsoon season, while larger waterfalls may get down to a trickle.

We saw silver falls, a single-drop waterfall that was very incredible, although we could not visit it up close (see above).

We also went to fairy falls, named by the British after a beautiful woman.

Finally, we saw Bee falls, a waterfall by which millions of bees make their home in the summer (remember: right now it is monsoon season, not summer, so there were no bees there).

Apparently, honeycombs would fill this entire wall (see below).

Bee falls looks like this:

A note on bathers: There are many bathers at waterfalls in general, as they provide a place to be clean. Water often has a symbolic cleansing power as well, such as in the case of the Ganges (which is why Varanasi is such a popular pilgrammage spot). However, most bathers/almost all are male, because modesty for women is so important here. Men are permitted to walk around in their underwear at waterfalls though. 

Here's a pretty picture of a tree by Bee Falls:

Curating Museums

We visited a small museum at the park in Pachmarhi, located inside the old Bison Lodge. There were definitely some interesting objects in there, and it was a place easily distinguishable from American-style museums. Here’s a list of some of the objects, some with pictures:

-          a stuffed tiger. Yes, this is as close as I ever want to get to a tiger.

-          a tiger skeleton (note that the ribs are held together with tape)

-          preserved animal parts and fetuses 

-          various medicinal fruits and roots

Another thing that you won’t see in an American museum: a monkey chasing you out of it! (no picture: I was too busy fearing for my life).

Some mountain views

There are many beautiful valleys and mountains surround Panchmarhi, probably due to it’s location on a plateau surrounded by mountains. Here are some views of the mountains as seen from the park on a foggy day:

Temples

Pachmarhi is a town with many temples in caves. We went to three of the main ones.

The first one that we went to is arguably the most famous: Jata Shankar. Although much of the shrine was underwater because of the monsoon season, it is dedicated to the Shiva, one of the three principle deities in Hinduism. A symbol of Shiva is the trident, which explains the tridents in the pictures. We also received blessings while at the temples, which include these red and orange bracelets on my arm:

We also visited two other cave temples.

One of them was beautifully ornamented on the outside with marble floors. Although many (or most) temples contain beautiful stonework or beautiful stone in general, the work at this temple was beautiful and green. However, this place was also infested with many monkeys. These monkeys in particular enjoyed coming terrifyingly close to people.

The third temple was the smallest and hardest to enter. In order to get to this temple, you had to squeeze through a small tunnel, which apparently is only held open with wooden or bamboo sticks, to reach an opening at the end. Despite the difficulties of entry, it was very beautiful, and I really enjoyed going there.

Pachmarhi

Pachmarhi is a town located in north-central India (common spellings include Pachmarhi and Panchmarhi, although it would be most honestly spelled Pa(n)mardhi). It was “discovered” in 1857 when James Forsyth, a military captain in the British army, stumbled upon it. By founding this area, Forsyth helped develop a connection to the British, which can still be seen today, as there are many signs in English, as well as evidence in intervention for the creation of a national park. Here’s the specific creation story: Forsyth went to Pachmarhi on a hunting expedition, and he shot a bison. The head of this bison was then placed on the first structure erected by the British, now the Bison Lodge.

Why the name Pachmarhi? Pachmarhi’s name comes from a famous site in the area. There are five caves carved into a mountain, supposedly dedicated to five brothers (mini Hindi lesson: Pa(n)ch means five).

Here’s a view of the botanical gardens from one of the five caves:

Who lived in Pachmarhi before it became a foothold of the British empire? Tribal people lived there. Although they have now fled to the surrounding mountains and forest regions, tribal people seem to be very much in the local discourse, as they sell fruits and the market. They also constitute part of the tourist market, as some tours advertise that you can meet tribal people. We also visited one of their sacred sites. The Korku people (or Korku tribals) go to this site with a wooden or stone piece that has carvings of people who have died on it. These carvings are made after the death of a person, and must be brought to this site within 10 years of the death. The carvings are then placed by the mango tree, and must not be disturbed in any way, resulting in a chaotic but beautiful memorial site.

Geologically, the region is also pretty interesting. Located on the largest plateau in north-central India (or so our guide assured us), the plateau was actually made by a volcanic eruption, which then became a crater. After that, water came into the area, depositing massive amounts of river rock that are now sedimentary rock layers. This is some lava-rock (aka igneous rock).

Want to know about some fun flora and fauna? Well, here’s a short non-exhaustive list of all of the flora and fauna in the area that you may be interested in:

Also, there is a hallucinogenic flower in the area. It falls from trees, and our guide told us that, if it is made into tea people “see rainbows” and do funny things. It also is hallucinogenic for the cows as well, and manages to seep into their milk. Luckily, the fruit falls in the summer, so it was out-of-season when we were there. I don’t really think that hallucinogenic flowers are my thing.

Pending Trip Advisory

This weekend we’re going to a hill station! I am very excited to get out of the heat (well, into 80 degrees of heat instead of 100 really), but I will be sans access to the internet for a while, so expect updates when I get back, but not before then!

But a funny story before I leave you to your own devices for the weekend. My Hindi teacher, Prastuti, (1) is awesome, (2) teaches pre-nursery during the day. So yesterday, they had quite an event. First, their regular classroom was covered in rain because the ceiling was leaking (from the giant rainstorm) (that was the part that I understood in Hindi). So they went upstairs to the other classroom, and then started class as usual. However, sometime during the course of the class, not one but two of the mean monkeys got into the classroom. Basically, she had to chase monkeys out of the classroom while attempting to stop kids from yelling yah bandar hai and attracting the attention of the monkeys (who could be rabid and also could bite the kids), which is simoultaneously hilarious and terrifying at the same time.

A temple on every corner

While we were looking around at the pilgrims, we also wandered around town to a certain extent. One thing I thought I would comment on is the extreme number of temples in Varanasi. Another part is that temples can be beautiful and tucked away.

Here’s a picture of a temple that we found in a courtyard next to an internet café.

On the column there were even carvings of a temple. Pretty meta-temple if you ask me.

Seeing White People

So the other day we went on an adventure to a Lonely Planet suggested restaurant, meaning that we saw incredible amounts of foreigners (that and the fact that the aartis this month attract incredible incredible numbers of tourists- we saw probably about 100 foreigners yesterday!), and it was so strange to be sitting in the company of so many other white people who were interested in talking to us (apparently, we are like locals now- such a weird thought). It was also really interesting to hear all of these stories of people and why they came to India. For example, we met someone who came here to look for an NGO to work for during the summer while her chef boyfriend is experimenting with real Indian cooking. We also met someone who visits India all the time, a sort of long-term tourist who comes back every couple of years. I am very fascinated by the reasons why people end up here, especially because it seems so incidental and random that I am here myself.

An ending note: The food was pretty good- I got some serious dairy products (mostly cheese). Dairy is definitely something I miss.

Advertising

Here the rules on advertising are pretty lax, meaning that copyright is not really a big issue.

A couple of examples from around town:

I was talking to one of the interns, and he was so frustrated that another book company would decide to steal a book already published. Apparently there was a big lawsuit about it at one point in time, but the wider point here is that copyright laws are not so great as to prevent someone from taking a popular book and re-publishing it (the book is called Autobiography of a Yogi if you’re interested in reading it).

I’ll try to get a picture of this one eventually, but there is a shop with both a coke awning and Pepsi products sold inside it. I wouldn’t be surprised if this happens often. Perhaps brand loyalty is not really common here.

Another thing that is not really common is the rights of people to their own image. One example is a famous film star, Shah Khan (on the right of the advertisement). His picture is pasted all over many advertisements, without his permission. Although companies would have to pay him to wear their specific product, his image still shows up everywhere. Maybe it’s all just false advertising (something that also happens all the time here – there is a dentist we pass by a lot, and there’s no way those before-after pictures on the sign are the same person).

Harry Potter in Hindi

Over the weekend, we saw Harry Potter 7 (part 2) in Hindi. Even though I obviously didn’t understand many of the finer points in Hindi, I knew most of the plot from reading the books (even though the movie did make some changes and I was sort of confusing from not having watched part 1). Some interesting things about Indian movie theaters:

1. Assigned seating. For this movie, someone was actually sitting in our seat, and the usher asked them to move.
2. Pre-paid tickets. For almost every movie, you have to get the tickets beforehand as they attempt to sell out the theater.
3. Refreshments, please? You can order refreshments from your seat as people walk around to ask you if you want food.

What is amusing to an Indian audience (the biggest noises in the theater happened when…)

1. Ollivander and Harry were talking about wands. Many many many jokes about “big sticks” were made by pubescent boys.
2. Voldemort appeared. Take one for the villain.
3. Romantic moments. In old Indian film, romantic moments are not really allowed, and so romantic moments are still a little surprising to some viewers.

Interesting things lost in translation:

1. Spells- still the same.
2. When Voldemort speaks in Parseltongue, they translate it into Hindi.
3. there is still code-switching (word substitution in English) in the movie. Examples: “bloody hell,” “brilliant.”

Luckily, I have decided that my childhood is not over yet. Since I’m still a teenager, and have not seen Harry Potter 7 in English, I still have time…

An adventure

 

Yesterday, I went on an adventure around town, visiting several places (some including pictures).

First, I went on a walk around town, meaning I just walked in every direction (of course, maintaining some sort of idea as to where I actually was), stumbling on a couple of temples (not surprisingly, since temples here are like churches in the American South), a pack of monkeys, and some apartment complexes. This first picture is of a local post office building. I’m not sure what it used to be.

 Some monkeys. They were just chilling.

Then, I headed toward Assi Ghat, the ghat closest to our guest-house. There, I unsuspectingly met up with one of my fellow interns, and we visited a famous ashram here, dedicated to a woman saint. It was super-interesting, but I felt somewhat out-of-place without knowing her background and all the proper procedures for taking a tour of an ashram. It was definitely cool and very pretty though! The amount of stone in all of these temples is simply incredible, and I really like the moderately bare aesthetic in the body of the temple (generally the altars are pretty packed though). After that, I took a walk back to the guesthouse, and took some pictures of transportation (I’ll post those soon).

 After lunch, I went to BHU. Here is the statue at BHU's main gate, of the founder of the university.

 I went to the ayurvedic garden, which was essentially a wilderness/botanical garden. It was really interesting to compare that with the well-kept botanical gardens in the States.

 Here's a pretty flower in the botanical garden! Note the wilderness going on in the background.

I also went to the Madurayadas (possibly misspelled here). It was a moderately well-kept sculpture garden. It was a nice place to sit (despite the fact that there were several people staring at me, including a couple who came to sit closer to me and stare for a closer look). The sculptures were also interesting- the collection there made it seem like Indians have a particular affinity for cubism and modern sculpture. This is the view from where I decided to sit and read my book.

The weather started turning gloomy (finally some rain!) and this resulted in a tree falling over in the middle of the road by the garden (saw it happen-super crazy!) and a motorbike accident in the middle of the road (didn’t see it happen, but the response was just normal people cleaning up- generally ambulances are really slow here, as are police responses). I then stopped and got an ice cream cone, and walked home in the rain. It probably looked pretty strange to everyone, but to me it seemed just fine.

The Beginning of a New Month

Fun fact: India operates on two calendars. In addition to operating on the standard Gregorian calendar, there is also the Indian calendar, which I runs on a lunar system. Each month may have special things associated with it. For example, this coming month (which starts on Monday), Shraavana, has very auspicious days on Monday (that’s Somwaar to you), which means that there are about a million and a half pilgrims coming to Varanasi to take a dip in the Ganga. Every Monday. In fact, these days are so auspicious that women of a certain age will fast all day so they can have better husbands (they will also attend special temple services). Why Varanasi? Well, Varanasi is the city of Shiva, and the month is known for Shiva. So Mondays are Shiva’s days, and therefore, everyone wants to take a dip in the sacred river in Shiva’s city. They even close down some streets to accommodate pilgrims, and only allow cycles and scooties (Vespas) on the roads there. Our solution? School closes on Mondays, and instead goes on Saturdays.

Guru Purnima

Literally, it translates to be the day of the guru when there is a full moon (this year, Friday the 15^th of July). Part of the Hindu and Buddhist calendar, this is a restricted holiday by the government, which is to say that you can take it off of work if you’d like to. Of course, you are only allowed to take off so many of these days a year.

We went to the Guru Purnima festivities, which were held at the occult temple, which we had visited once before. Some traditions at the ceremonies include:

-          Having cooks make food all night for everyone who stays at the temple

-          Bathing in a special pool, and then throwing away the clothes that you wore (which are then given to the rural poor).

-          Going up to the highest point of the temple (that is only open twice a year)

Why the occult temple?

The occult temple has a guru of its own, and is not affiliated with a specific god, so it makes sense that people would come there to see the guru of the city (who lives there) or to celebrate their guru in general. People will also make pilgrimages to see their guru or the house of their guru on this day.

Don't make me go to rehab!

Here, substance abuse is not really recognized as an issue, but there definitely is substance abuse left and right. So here are some examples of substances used:

Paan- essentially similar to chewing tobacco, and there’s the bonus that it makes your teeth red and disintegrates your gums or give you gum cancer. It’s made of the betel nut. The paan habit is associated with lower classes.

Cigarettes- It seems like people disapprove of cigarettes, or at least the government does, since there packages are labeled with a sign that says “Poison” and there are graphic signs at BHU of lung cancer lungs.

Marijuana- Once in a while you can smell some people smoking, but it seems like people like to consume it more through Bong Lassi, i.e. a dairy drink with marijuana.

Alcohol- In Varanasi, it does not seem like alcohol is a big deal, but one problem that definitely exists across India is that of drunk driving, which is not generally recognized as an issue. Combined with the crazy Indian driving styles and traffic, this causes many accidents, especially on highways.