Back in the USA

I just arrived back in the US (safely). I still have lots of things to post about this summer, and I put those posts up soon!

Cal 2011

Kolkata was so cool and I'm really glad we went even though we didn't get to see nearly the amount of things that I would have liked to see. This is going to be more pictures-caption style because I am trying to do too much in the space of the two days that I am back in Varanasi.

 Me in front of the Victoria Memoria, a symbol of imperial Calcutta and a beautiful building.

 Be sure not to exercise in the Victoria Memorial grounds- it's not allowed.

Another view of the memorial.

 Inside the Saturday Club, one of the most prestigious clubs in Calcutta (called Cal by all of the locals).

 At the house of Tagore, who is famous for his poetry and painting. He wrote the national anthem.

 Statues for Durga Puja. They are made from plaster/mud and straw. I would say that they are quite impressive.

They parade these statues through the street for 10 days and then afterward put them in the river, the Hooghly. Yes, this is my favorite name for a river.

This is one of the temples at the Ramakrishna ashram at Belur Math. It was a peaceful and beautiful place by the Hooghly river and it was nice to see so many people meditating in peace.

Bengali ice cream! Did you know that Kolkata is in West Bengal? It's one of the many states in India, and in West Bengal, Bengali (or Bangla) is the languages of the masses. However, most people did also speak Hindi or English too.
Back to the ice cream though- it was delicious and made out of wheat and molasses and something else. So tasty!!!

A last view of the city from the train station. The language grafitti'ed on the building is Bengali.

Kolkata

I'm going to Kolkata this weekend (aka Calcutta, the imperial trading center). Hopefully I'll be able to update before getting back to the states, but I have a busy couple of days in front of me. I only have about 36 hours in Varanasi after I get back to Kolkata and before I leave to go to the Taj Mahal and Delhi and home!

Last day in Betawar

I had my last day at Betawar on Wednesday, and we did some fun activities to prove that we understand music. This involved some serious drawing.
My second and third-graders were drawing pictures of "what they think of when they think of music."

My fourth- and fifth- graders were drawing pictures of the subject of their favorite songs.

It will be an understatement to say that I'll miss these kids. They are all great and adorable and I hope that they all grow up and continue their education.
A view leaving the campus:

Anna Hazare

You may have been hearing about this name in the news, as protests have been on the upswing in India in general. However, in Varanasi the protests are basically limited to university students (but some professors also). However, I have seen protests in the streets in the middle of the day (stopping all traffic- although it is also possible to do so if your bus breaks down). There is also a semipermanent booth in front of BHU which is manned even at 5:45 in the morning (today I went running pretty late) with signs that say iSupport Anna Hazare.

The basic story is that there is a bill allowing for impeachment of public officials that leaves out a lot of different important officials (judges, prime minister, etc). People want the bill to include more people, and that is why the protests are happening. These protests in particular also are because of a leading figure- Anna Hazare. He has been jailed for his protests. According to one of the people I talked to, it is the biggest political movement in India in the last 30-40 years. I also heard it be compared to the so-called “Arab Spring.” 

 

For the most updated news, I would recommend looking at the New York Times.

The Exorcism of my Light

Everyone knows that I have been in a fight with my room recently. Allow me to describe some of my battles.

The Battle of the Monsoon

This battle was unfortunately won by the rain. It was me and my room against the rain and a hole in the ceiling (located unfortunately right above my pillow). My mattress and pillow both were soaked, which resulted in one night of sleeping on the dry half of my mattress and one night of sleeping in another room. 

 You can see the bucket used to keep the rainwater here, and you can also see the demonic light that is commented on below. that blue light is so evil. 

The Shocking Battle

Once in a while, my light would shock me. I would normally just allow this experience to augment my fear of buttons that I have developed while being here. So I ignored it for a while, until the shocking became extreme during the Battle of the Monsoon. I was convinced that there was no compromise; the light would have to be exorcised of its demons or I would have to perish in the battle. After continuing its shocking streak, the light started a new strategy: staying on all of the time. The off switch became both an ineffective way to stay shock-free and turn things off. Luckily, I was armed with my magical hanky, which allowed me to take the bulb out without shocking myself or burning myself. However, the battle does not end here. Last night, as I was getting ready to go to bed, the light shocked me without me touching it. “that was the last straw,” I screamed! And now my light has been fully exorcised, as you can see in this picture.

Update: My light has been fixed by an electrician and now is functioning properly, just in case you were worried about me.

The last days of Teej

 Teej is a monsoon festival here that happens to fall right after Raksha Bandan. It is generally celebrated by the lower classes, although many groups recognize it. In order to see what the festival is all about, we went to go hang out with our didis (our cooks and housekeepers here). They were incredibly welcoming and gave us some cream rolls (sort of like éclairs nom nom nom). After eating and meeting some family, we went up to the roof, where we celebrated the festival properly, which is to say the didis sang some songs. Almost all of the songs were about the monsoon, but some of them were also about life as a woman. For example, one of the songs is about the hardships of floods during the monsoon season and the different problems that people encounter. Other songs apparently had subversive messages about the family structure, which is understandable because of the amount of power that the mother-in-law has over the daughter (since many families are joint families, the mother-in-law has a lot of control over the daughter-in-law, and tends to pass all cooking-cleaning-household activity responsibilities off to her.

All of the songs were sung in groups of 2, and the groups would sing back and forth to each other. The didis also knew all of the words (or at least some people), which is impressive (1) because these songs only are sung during Teej and (2) because the songs are very long.

Afterward, we got jaleba, which is like jalebi but so much better! (imagine funnel cake in sugar syrup and you have a pretty good idea of what it is…)The only not-fun thing about the night was that we got back home at around 12:15 or so…

Idependence Day

As you may or may not know, August 15 is India’s Independence Day. It is a big holiday: schools have special programs, there are parades, and everyone eats sweets. Today we are having an independence day program at school and I will be accompanying the program for the following levels: Nursery/PreNursery, Kindergarten, 3, 4, 8-9, teachers for a grand total of 7 songs, none of which I really have written down.

Here’s a link to the Kindergarten song on youtube: Ek Chiriya. In short, the song is about how India is diverse, but united, and that the unitedness allows India to be a successful place.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4nZnvCnRPU8

Violet and I both took some video footage of the different performances. I tried to upload them, especially my favorite dance about healthy bodies and healthy minds, but it didn't work. 

 

Havelis

 So fancy!!!!

I was creeping really hard in this picture, but the point is that there is imported Italian marble on the floor and fancy wood everywhere. So impressive!

We went to all of these different Havelis (ok well only 2). Basically, they are these large villa/house complexes that were owned by the Indians whose families were recognized as important by the Imperial powers that be. Generally speaking, these families were already active and important in the community before the British came, but they gained extra power upon the British arrival.

These people were all friends or relatives of Naval Krishna sir, who is just insanely connected (partly a result of his family). We had tea and snacks with them, which is something that I really enjoy. Tea and tasty snacks should definitely become a practice in the US.

Architecturally, these houses were beautiful. I only took pictures of one of them though. The pictures are above. 

Golden Temple and other adventures

Yesterday, Violet and I went on a couple of adventures.

First, we went to the Golden Temple. Because the temple is difficult to get into,, Violet’s Hindi skills were very useful. This was the screening process for getting in: metal detector (and you better have stored all of your things in a locker before then and bought an offering basket), passport check, mini-interrogation, temple gate check. At each of these points, you can be rejected, or pushed back so far in the throng of people that you will never get in.

Of course, it hasn’t always been this way. Apparently, in the 1950’s there was a bit of a conflict between the Hindus and Muslims that caused such a problem. However, I bet that the increased number of tourists also made them less willing to let so many people to visit.

Afterward, we went to the tomb of a famous Muslim ruler, Lal Khan ka Rosa. It is located on the far north side of town, which meant it was quite a trek. However, it was pretty beautiful, and I took some pictures. There were also some ruins nearby. The ruins were the remains of the ancient city of Banares. 

This is a picture of the tomb. Note the Arabic script. 

 Also got some McD's after. Paneer burger was nomalicious.

The Fabric Industry

Yesterday Violet and I went to visit a friend of her old boss’ who works in the fabric industry.

First, I need to say that I did not take any pictures. It seemed horrendously atrocious to do so. Luckily, he gave us a book of information, so I took some pictures of that and I’ll post them.

In terms of our adventures:

We got to see a hand loom in operation. To me, it seemed more like a full body loom. You sit down in a certain spot, and operate the loom with both your hands and feet. So on the loom are a gazillion and a half strings that are perpendicular to the person who is weaving. To create the embroidery, the weaver just sends the thread back and forth in the correct order. However, there is this whole system that manages it for him. It’s almost like a computer. So there are these punch cards that tell the loom what pattern to make (not operated by power, though, entirely by person), and then the strings move up and down according to the pattern on the card. There are at least 200 of these cards, and then they switch for every row of thread. When the pattern repeats itself, it literally just goes back to the beginning of the cards.

Afterward, we got to look at some of the finished product. Since the shop specializes in traditional Tibetan patterns, we saw those, and they were beautiful. One interesting thing about them is that many of the patterns cannot be changed in any way including color.

We also saw some scarves designed by her friend, Sribhas Supakar. They were really beautiful and intricate, and it was evident that a lot of work is needed to make them. In fact, they take very long to make. To make 2 scarves (like shawls), it would take one person 8 days. To make 4 mufflers (scarves), it would take one person 8 days.  

This is a picture of a scarf that he designed:

How do you design a sari or fabric so that it can be made on one of these looms?

First you draw it on graph paper. Eventually it becomes enlarged such that you see the pattern and how the loom should be for literally every thread. Then you would do the whole computer thing and then finally the final product of creating the scarves. 

Here are some other pictures:

 Some Oriental birds (non traditional design- he made it).

 A copy of a Moghal painting.

 A curtain he designed. It is a tree.

He also does other work, including things that are sold on the international market, which were cool to see. There were all of these crazy fabrics. He had one that looked a lot like bubble wrap, one that was made entirely out of peacock feathers (super-expensive), one that looks like crocodile skins.

Afterward, had dinner with his family. They were all nice and the food was delicious! I was so happy to have paneer and paratha. Nom nom nom!

Also, this is just the tip of the iceberg. If you want to know more information, just post/email your questions!

One Night @ the Call Center

Since you really can’t do too much on a monsoon day when you don’t have power, nothing is open, and all the streets are flooded, I picked up a popular fiction book here: One Night @ the Call Center. First, I’d like to make a spoiler alert right here.

Next, here are some interesting things:

1. The book is written in English. In terms of audience, it is probably looking for younger (teenagers and twentysomethings) audiences. By using English, it also is a book for upper class kids who have access to a good enough English education that they would be able to and would want to read the book.

2. The book is very clearly trying to convey a message, or have you learn something from it (almost like a fable). At the beginning, you are asked to write down something that you are afraid of, something that makes you angry, and one thing that you don’t like about yourself.

3. The book has an interesting choice of plot devices. While the plot revolves around a single night, there are many flashbacks to the past. It also keeps a surprising amount of unity of action, place, and time (insofar as we are referring to the sections about the actual evening).

4. There is also this interesting storytelling device. The author frames the book as such: he met someone on the train who told him this story and told him to interview all of the people who were involved.

5. A meeting with God- Of course, one instantly becomes more skeptical of a book when a God-figure just walks right into it. In this case, they get into a car accident and God walks right into it. Anyway, here are the lessons that God teaches them: In order to be successful, one must have moderate intelligence, imagination, self-confidence and the experience of failure. However, God also encourages them to take down a person “for the greater good,” which is achieved in a very mischievous way. While reading the book, it seemed to me that the God was definitely a Hindu-type god.

6. Nationalism- There are some very clear nationalist tendencies in this book. America (in particular) is hated on all the time. Here are some examples:

a. Saving the company- They save the company through preying on American fear- aka they convince Americans that their computers are broken and they must keeping calling the call center. Note that it is also phrased as such.

b. There is always the idea of a ‘strong’ India that comes from the actions of the common person. It also is similar to the idea of self-rule (aka hind swaraj) or independence.

c. Vroom and his merchandise- One of the characters, after talking to God, gives up some of his American things (like jeans and pizza) as well as his consumerist impulse.

7. Things missing in the book (potential contradictions if read through a Western cultural lens):

a. Diatribes about not swearing- in the book, there is tons of swearing, and no one ever says it is a bad thing at all. However, it could be in part because English swear words seem to carry a lot less weight here, in that people are very willing to drop English swear words, even in front of the children.

b. Diatribes against drunk driving- They get in the car accident because the driver was drunk, and yet no one says that driving while drunk. The closest that it gets is that someone else (also drunk) offers to drive instead, and nothing happens.

Monsoons

Just the other day we had a monsoon day at school. There was entirely too much rain during the morning and all of the streets were flooded. Apparently the monsoon season is worst at the beginning and end. I took a couple of pictures so you could better understand why we couldn’t have school. 

 So still raining when I was taking this picture. normally that pit (that is full) is about 3 feet deep.

 our guesthouse in the middle! We sort of have a roof there. which is why it wasn't overflowing completely, but it was definitely an experience.

Raksha Bandhan (Rakhi)

Today is a special festival here. It’s the end of the month, which means it’s Raksha Bandhan! On this Hindu religious holiday, girls give people who are literally or figuratively their brothers bracelets (rakhi), which will then ensure protection for the girls. The brothers also give gifts or money to their sister. It also is used as a way to strengthen the bond between brother and sister even after a sister becomes married and part of the family of her husband. In preparation for this festival, there have been many stands selling bracelets on the street.

The story behind the festival: at one time a Raj (King) was about to go into battle, a princess (presumably his sister) tied a bracelet on his wrist in order to show him that she was remembering while he was in battle.

This holiday also is celebrated with worship, at the auspicious time of noon or 1ish. What happens is the family gathers together, and the sisters perform pujas for the brothers and tie the bracelets on them (and feed them). After that, the brothers give their sister(s) gifts. We visited Nilam ma’am’s house to watch the ceremony and meet her family. It was really nice, although coming back we were altogether stuffed from eating so much food (it appears as though hospitality everywhere involves feeding you until you are stuffed).

We also got the grand tour of their house (which is beautiful) and I took some pictures from the roof. You can see the Ganga (but not from the picture that you can see). 

Birthday Sari

I bought a Banarasi-style sari for my birthday (only a week late)! Since I just got it, I don’t have the blouse made or anything, and it is not ready to wear at all. However, I can still show you some sweet pictures of the color (light purple/gray- apparently it makes me look like a girl) and the hand-work. There are a couple of things that make this sari from Banaras. One is the type and style of the embroidery. While it will have specific patterns, the color is also always gold, as you can see. This sari is also made of 100% silk, which makes it pretty typical for a fancy sari (of course, that also makes it expensive, even with our discount. Definitely more expensive than any dress I bought for high school dances, but that is not saying much… maybe it would be more descriptive to say that it was about as much as buying 2 tickets to an average theater production in Chicago…).

This is separate from Banaras- style embroidery, which can be seen on the kurta that I’m wearing today. Here’s a picture of that. In this picture, I am clearly trying to guess the kind of bird that is on my shirt (while looking extra pasty from the flash). 

More Indian music info...

Since going to one Indian classical music concert, I’ve gone to a couple of other musical events. Yesterday, I saw a famous singer from Mumbai, and I’ve also become more involved with musical performances for Independence Day (August 15). Some interesting tidbits:

-          Since Indian classical music is almost wholly improvised (within a certain framework set up by a raag, which is still not entirely clear to me), coordinating a song on stage can be difficult. Most of the motions to coordinate songs seem to be the all-familiar head-waggle as well as hand movements (especially for the singer). I am really excited to come back to the states and compare this with jazz musicians.

-          Most of the time, Indian songs seem to be about 15-20 minutes long (at least in the context of vocal performances). However, there is quite a range, and songs can really get up to about 30 minutes. Lengths of 15-20 minutes seems somewhat standard for the classical style though (at least in concert).

-          Classical music concerts are a social event: much like classical music concerts in the context of the Court, these are social events. We went to the concert last night with Naval Krishna sir, and he introduced us to many important people, many of whom were old family friends.

-          The relationship between music and dance is very visible, and, if you know the words (that some songs do have), you can almost imagine the dance. Many of the words are also sanskritic, which means that they are pretty antiquated and hard for the beginning Hindi student to understand.

Also, here are some links to some Indian classical music. A bunch of these sorts of songs were given to me in mp3 form from the music teacher here if anyone would like them when I get back to the States:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hEwNSssI0bw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOMBsCgVK1k

A Sunrise Boat Ride

Since today is Michelle’s last day, we went to the ghats and got a boat ride for the morning. Since we left at 4:50am or so, we managed to see the sun rise on the river, which was pretty awesome (even though it was cloudy/hazy, as per usual). I also saw white people in the largest numbers since being in O’Hare (Chicago’s airport). Regardless, the ride was beautiful, so I took some pictures. Here they are:

 This is a very very very early in the day view of Varanasi.

 This was one of our three guides (we had a big motorboat because the tides are much stronger during monsoons).

 There are some cool fatigue cracks on this temple...

We also visited Manikarnika Ghat (aka the burning ghat). This place burns literally 24/7, as Varanasi is the place where people want to die and be cremated (and then, of course, put into the Ganga). Manikarnika is one of two burning ghats in the city, and is the more popular of the two (as I understand). As a tourist, it was a very strange experience, as I felt like I was participating in a strange form of exoticism combined with death. In terms of comparisons, it was like attending funerals for people who you did not know. It was quite interesting, but altogether very intense. 

 Us on the way to the burning ghat. You really should not and cannot take pictures once you are there.

Snakes and Nag Panchami

Yesterday was a festival celebrated here in which everyone pays their respects to the snakes. It is called Nag Panchami. While it is associated with Krishna and Manasa, the festival is mainly to protect yourself from snakes. While mostly celebrated in villages (in villages, snakes could be a legitimate problem, while they are not as prevalent in cities), this festival is also big in Banaras (one possible explanation being that Shiva is often depicted with a snake). This means that there is some serious snake-charming going on at temples. We had a snake charmer visit after school (because we still had school- a sore subject among many students and teachers who just skipped school rather than miss the celebrations and ceremonies). As I result, I got to hold a baby snake (that will grow to be about a 1.5 foot constrictor).  We also saw some snake charming, and some other varieties of snakes, including cobras (defanged). Afterward, I talked to Jay (one of the managers who used to work in wildlife preservation) and learned about snakes. Here are a couple of interesting points. 

Since snakes are deaf, snake charming is really all about the movement of the flute rather than the actual sound of the song.

Once a snake is defanged, it will only live for about a month.

If you ever want to catch a cobra, here is your method:

First, get your supplies: a sack and a long stick.

Second, find your cobra.

Third, let the cobra get ready to strike while maintaining a safe distance (you can tell how far that is by how long the cobra is- generally about 1.5 times the length of the part in the air).

Fourth, start twisting one of your hands while in a fist so the cobra has something to aim at. With the other hand, hold the stick and push the cobra to the ground by pushing the stick against its hood.

Finally, when the cobra is on the ground, open the sack and the cobra will go right in (cobras like to avoid conflict, and like dark places).

Jay tells me that it is so easy to catch a cobra and that he has done it so many times.

A School Visit

When we were at the Cantonment, we also visited a school. Luckily, they were very excited to have Western visitors, so they helped us inside and showed us everything they were interested in at the school. So here’s a list of some of the things that we saw, and what I thought of them…

Here's the inside of the secondary school building. Looks sort of like a prison with a courtyard. 

They tell you what time it is!

The teacher’s lounges: First, they were separated by gender, which seems sort of weird to me, but is probably pretty normal here.

The music class: They were very proud to have extracurricular programs, which included music. They were doing a dance and chant essentially, so here’s a picture. 

Physical Education: They were very proud to have many boxing champions, so we saw many pictures of boxing champions in their office, although they did not think that we would be interested in going to the gymnasium (wrong-o). Besides, boxing, most of the popular sports were pretty standard (cricket, football, badminton (girls), etc.).

Art: Temporarily missing because the teacher was on leave.

The upper classes (10-12): They were already organized by the education that they planned on pursuing (commerce, science, etc).

Computer lab: They were very excited to show us the computer lab (in fact, so excited that we got to view 2 computer labs). However, the students in class were not doing anything. Most people were just searching on the internet or playing games like pinball or solitaire. Clearly, productivity was not really a goal of their computer program, which is a real shame. Here’s a hilarious picture of some solitaire and space pinball though…

Library: A couple of weird things were going on in the library, all of which lead me to believe that they have no idea what’s going on. I guess a common thing is to keep books in glass boxes that no one can take them out of:

And then put millions of books on tables so that the children are drowning in magazines, and possibly cannot read all of the material and aren’t comfortable reading with a gazillion things going on. 

Lower Levels (primary school): This was a little disorgranized (actually very disorganized) and there were kids running all over the place. It was also interesting to see 50-60 7-year-olds in a classroom, if not sort of terrifying.

Overall, it was very different from NIRMAN, but I’m not sure if it’s 100% bad kind of different in the way that Nita ma’am believes the government school is.