Loading...
Start a new Travel Blog! Blogabond Home Maps People Photos My Stuff

Adventures in Hindustan

a travel blog by Drie

I'm studying abroad in INDIA! This is to keep you all updated (and hopefully entertained) about my adventures in this awesome country. I hope to read your responses and comments.
view all 107 photos for this trip

Show Oldest First
Show Newest First

on the streets

Jaipur, India

2/24/08

My first weekend spent here in Jaipur. As whenever I suddenly have much free time, I feel antsy like I should be out doing something…But I really can think of to do useful now is study or read. Hmm..
Special musing/bitching for the day: are Indians friendly people? I just can’t say that Indians are particularly friendly. Of course all my musings here are blatant generalizations. A billion people cannot be all friendly or unfriendly. But in general I don’t find Indians to be especially kind, accepting or hospitable. In fact many--at least to me--are rude, deceitful, cold or disdainful. Of course, much of the ill-will I gather towards them comes from a disgust of how men in the street tend to treat me, which is a sort of an unfair basis of evaluation. Maybe their friendly to each other, maybe I’d be more welcomed if I wasn’t a woman doing what is socially unacceptable for a woman to do. But, on the other hand, this kind of behavior makes it damn hard for me to trust or experience goodwill toward many people. Treatment I’ve gotten on the street includes-- “hello! Hello!” “Come here!” “Why don’t like Indians…talk to me!” “Hello! Fuck me! Sex me, sex me!” “Schhhhh schhhh!” You say bug off and it goads them on into following and badgering you. There’s also the charming feature of kids throwing rocks or bopping me on the head, even groping me. People lie, heckle and badger us. They stare blatantly, often-ludely, at you. Its hard to speak to any local man without suspecting ill intentions. There are exceptions. Mitaji is possibly the sweetest woman I’ve ever met. Rimaji is stately and kind. Renuji and her husband were generous, helpful and welcoming. But these have been the exceptions.
There are unique and positive sides of the general character sketch too. Indians tend to be forward, outgoing, honest, funny, audacious, even charming. They are proud of their culture and have strong values—there’s something positive about characteristic even if I don’t agree with the values. But while this makes them a people fascinating to me, they haven’t become dear to me.

On Friday I returned from the Internet and was invited to play Housie. I watched Dil Chahta Hai in the evening—even more spectacular than I remember. On Saturday, after an awkward lunch with Sunita, I went to old city with Aarthi to shop. I bought another kurta top and a silk scarf. Aarthi bought ship-load of jewelry. It was very interesting walking around with a person of Indian descent and seeing how it did and did not change how were treated. Aarthi speaks a little Hindi though not fluently, and she looks Indian but touristy (and traveling with a white person). Bargaining dynamics shifted subtlety; people were pushier talking to her but less blatantly rude.
We finished off the day with a Dominoes pizza dinner with Alisha and a MacDonalds Sunday to top it off. What a fantastic fast-food American dinner. Had a couple pleasant moments with Sunitaji when I returned and began to watch Lakshya until Emma returned late in the evening.
Today, I have lazed about, writing my paper, listening to Dil music and watching the rest of Lakshya. Then we all watched Lakshya together in Auntiji’s room. Turned out to be a very intense and actually quite good war movie. Was it a bonding experience? Almost.



permalink written by  Drie on February 28, 2008 from Jaipur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

homesick or hoppin town?

Jaipur, India

3/1/08

The days are dwindling, there are only 6 weeks left and just 3 weeks of travel time. Oh my god, I can’t go home for more than a month and a half? It’s a very conflicting feeling, the way time moves while abroad, and it switches daily if not from minute to minute. The feeling is worse since my roommate is currently going through a severe bout of homesickness.
I guess I will attempt to write my only little Maximizing Study abroad lesson here: Coping with Homesickness. It’s a tough thing, because when you’re in such a foreign place for so long you are bound to miss home, everything about it really. Besides friends and family, you may miss stupid shit that you would never even notice at home (for me this includes wooden floors, the smell of stir fry, ticking old clocks).
Yet this is your study abroad experience. You’ve been looking forward to this for years. Why waste it missing home? Then you get mad at yourself and are determined to suck it up and enjoy yourself. Why are you being weak?
My one bit of advice to myself and others is to avoid feeling the necessity of ‘getting over it.’ Acknowledge that you are homesick, that its not a particularly pleasant feeling. Also acknowledge that you’re not going to be getting home anytime soon. You might as well keep trying having a good time. This doesn’t necessary mean shaking off the homesickness, only working around it, despite it.
In any case, I do continue to enjoy the experience. Tomorrow I’m going to be completely uncharacteristic and get all excited about clothes…gonna spend a lot of money on clothes! That’s right. I’m getting a dress made for myself to my own design and I’m super excited about it. The reason of course can go back to our old globalization lessons. Labor here is just ridiculously cheap. The cost here is the cost of the cloth, the cost of the labor is last minute addition of a small percentage of the price. Go figure. In this case, literally what might cost rp. 100 would cost $100. It’s astounding really.
Sunita bought us skirts as going away presents, and boy was it unexpected! We bought another thank you gift of teacups but never thought she might be buying us something at the same time. Its one of those moments that I’m convinced she’s just a crabby old woman actually lonely and in need of company. If I were Anne of Green Gables she would be completely transformed by now.


permalink written by  Drie on March 1, 2008 from Jaipur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

India.. the jokes she pulls

Jaipur, India

3/2/08
I’ve neglected to say what I’ve been actually doing this weekend. On Friday our class Field trip was to go see Tare Zamee Par. It’s a Bollywood movie with a very predictable plot but very moving and, since Aamir Khan is in it, well done. Then Sarah and I went off to crossword where we bought my cheap movies and books, and then ate ridiculously priced but fantastic western food and almost didn’t have enough money to pay when they couldn’t run Sarah’s card.
Yesterday I had my second Saturday off and as last week went shopping. This time I bought myself pearl earrings and some teacups as our thank you gift to Sunita. We spent the evening in the other girl’s room where mosquitoes have found a way in and were infesting.
Today we went for our dresses and learned we hadn’t enough time left to have them be made. However, we were impressed by the men in the shop and will likely go back during our week back in Jaipur.
The real exciting (and enraging) clincher of the weekend though was the best joke pulled over by India yet. Just when you think you've got everything down and know a place, India reveals are peculiar sense of humour. After a semester of asking, searching, questing and yearning, we found wireless internet, two days before leaving here. Where was it? In City Pulse mall, located literally just down the block. That’s right free wireless Internet located in a quiet, temperature-controlled, apple-pie stocked café. If I have felt such bitterness before, it’s difficult to remember. In fact, I’m sending this very blog from that wireless internet. Ugh!

permalink written by  Drie on March 2, 2008 from Jaipur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

tea cups make the heart grow fonder

Jaipur, India

3/4/08
The legendary heat of India is beginning to rear its ugly head. And just as most places don’t have heat, most don’t have air conditioning, which changes the meaning of what is to be hot compared to the US. They say that this is just warm weather. Sunita warns us that it will no doubt get hot, but this isn’t hot yet. Oh boy.
Today we gave presentations about what we learned in international development of the environment. Unfortunately, I am learning more from reading the news and personal observation than what I learned in class. Oh boy.
Add to this the fact that my after-program travel plans may be partially shot by the fact that Nepal is slowing descending into chaos. There have been assignations, riots, strikes, and food shortages. And yet I am still tempted to go. Its Nepal! Oh boy.
On a positive note, Emma and I had picked up a present of teacups as a going away thank you present for our very crotchety auntie-ji. One of the teacups broke on the way home, so we ended up giving her five instead of six. When we gave them to her today, she actually seemed pleased at the choice of present. But she still expressed that she was put out by the uneven number. Then a miracle of coincidence—one of my favorite themes! She found a cup that was part of another broken set. The cup had the same painted design as the one’s we had bought! It was virtually the same except for having a gold ring around this edge. I don’t think I have ever seen Sunita quite so delighted.
In general our time with her has been far more pleasant and familial in the last few days. Why is it that things always improve when you are about to leave? Perhaps it is the preparation to leave itself. Oh boy.

permalink written by  Drie on March 4, 2008 from Jaipur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

here there be monsters

Jodhpur, India

3/6
I have arrived at the internship site, a small village called Jenu-Gagadi an hour and a half Jodhpur that will be home for the next six weeks. Don't try to find it on a map cause it aint anywhere labeled. I have never lived rural-aside from camping or at my cabin- like this before. It’s a shocking difference from ‘overlack’ of Jaipur. While Jaipur is overpopulated and overburdened and lacking infrastructure, Gagadi is just lacking. Situated in the Thar desert, here water and consequently food, money, and other luxuries are all scarce.
The five of us American’s are put up in simply built round concrete structures with a tiny bathroom. Each room has three wood beds (two for sleeping, one for everything else), 4 in-wall shelf, two tiny barred windows, 3 wall hooks, and 1 (thank god!) ceiling fan . The tiny bathroom (maybe 4x5) is equipped with a squatty toilet, a tiny sink, a bucket for washing and a beat up mirror. We are also given two lizards (now christened Fellow, and Buddy), a spider, and a wasp, the latter, which we decided to evict.
But much of the lack here is a pleasant shock. From the noisy honking and polluted bustle of Jaipur we are now given evenings disturbed only the by the wind rustling through the tree bean pods. A hundred thousand stars are visible above at night. In the day our sight is filled with orange blossoming trees, young green wheat fields and village women entering through the sandstone outer barrier to retrieve water in the silver canteens on their heads.
We will have English-speaking Indraniji, who accompanied us from the Jodhpur office, here for one more day after which we will have only one contact who speaks any English. All other communication must take place in either Hindi or Marabati (the local dialect). But everyone is very friendly including two children of one of the staff, brother and sister both around 10 years old. The two hang about waiting to entertained and willing to teach us hindi and marabati at will. They both seem incredibly bright, picking up on Uno, origami, knitting, mandolin and whatever else we teach them with surprising agility and very little common language to get explanations. Do Westerners learn to excel in only one kind of learning? Does book learning inhibit or ability to learn other types of things as easily?
Our first day here began with a 7:30 prayer period which included some chanting mostly to Ram I believe, followed by a reading of Gandhi-ji’s autobiography. Afterward we did the customary 15 minutes of physical work, this time using the classic Indian sweepers to clear fallen leaves out of the main garden area and moving them to the compost. This was followed by the now familiar chai and a breakfast of parantha (a thick flat bread) and chutney (a sauce made of raw vegetables and spices). We then met with the staff to discuss what we might actually do here, a subject until on which we were left in the dark. I would say things are now twighlight. We know that today is to be a rest day along with Sundays, that the day after tomorrow is the international women’s day and we will be part of the rally, and that we will be shadowing them on their work in the villages, and other projects may present themselves once we have done this.
The rest of the day we were left to our devices. So we read, lazed, boiled drinking water, lazed, taught the children Uno, lazed, showered and napped. After a 4 oclock tea we walked into the hills of the desert to watch the sunset. I watched as the other girls learned to dance from several the young Indian ladies and then we all watched the older ladies cook chapatti in the kitchen. We were warned that such ‘down’ days would likely occur. Besides, it happens that today is a holiday and even much the staff is off.
The greatest challenge of this very different lifestyle is going to be the heat. By midday the inside of the our darkened and thickwalled rooms were 31 C while in the sun it is over 35 C. They night cools down. But they tell us that March is cool, and that April will be far worse. By then lazing in the middle of the day may be a necessity for me even if there is work to be done.
So what is there to be done? From the literature I am learning about GRAVIS (Gramin Vikas Vigyan Samiti meaning Rural Science and Technology Organization) and their water resources projects. Essentially GRAVIS aims at helping villagers recover traditional methods of water capture that were lost when government water projects came in and provided water access that is no longer sufficient or efficient. Old simple methods are revised with newer technology. For instance, they are building tankhas which are really giant stone tanks halfway buried in the earth and able to catch water and drain it of silt. If filled by the monsoon (unlikely) the full tank could give drinking water for a family for a full 9 months.
I’m torn between complete satisfaction--who doesn’t want laze about all day and sit in the evening watching the stars in and listening to whistling of the trees?—and living 6 weeks in these conditions with virtually no contact with the outside world, rare doses of fruit, only batteries for my steripin and boiling to get drinking water.



permalink written by  Drie on March 6, 2008 from Jodhpur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

In heaven...with cobras

Jodhpur, India

3/7
Another day of inactivity followed the first. This time the excitement of the day was a 20 minutes football game following a 15 minute ride of terror on the back of a motorcycle through the sand. How do the two relate, you ask? Well you see, the football required a trip into the central part of Gagadi to get blown up and went along on that trip, not for the futbol or for the chance to ride on the terrifying back-of-motorcycle ride through the sand, but for the only 3 pieces of fruit within a 30 mile radius. We get great food here, but virtually nothing fresh and no fruit. We saw a giant spider I thought looked like a brown recluse (special interest to Ann) and either a rat snake or cobra...all right in our lving quarters which we have dubbed the gravvi fort (insert french accent). The evening featured a power outage and thus especially dark meal and another hour staring up into the stars and Dillan playing mandolin for entertainment.
Today was our first day of activity and it involved going to a nearby town to host rally for International Women’s day. We had glued signs and tied sticks to that morning and the night before and now we took them with us on the march through town. This was followed by several speeches including an impromptu one by Sarah after they told us one of us must speak on the occasion relating to women’s rights. We got see the GRAVIS run hospital for lunch before heading back.
Perhaps even more memorable than this rally and the over-filled jeep ride home was the morning run. We have determined to make this our new habit and thus I woke up at 6:00 to run through the silent desert while the sun rose over the horizon. Giri-ji insists that someone must go with us, so like the dogs that tag along, he runs loyally beside us the whole way. If I could continue to do this, it would be a new era of Dana actually choosing to rise early. Of course, it isn’t really by choice since the heat drives me to it.
As a special note to you all, these blogs will only appear once a week at the very most since it is only when we make the trip into jodhpur on Sundays that there is even the chance of internet access. Cell phone access is pretty sketchy too. We don’t get the Hindustan Times here, let alone imported copies of the The New York Times. It seems I may spend the next 6 weeks largely isolated from the world. Well it’s an experience let me say.

permalink written by  Drie on March 7, 2008 from Jodhpur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

City is the key word

Jodhpur, India

3/9/08
Day 4…
Our day in the city. We spent four hours riding on a bus for 5 hours of time in Jodhpur. I think it may on be 50 kilometers to Jodhpur but the many stops and poor roads make it a long and bumpy trip, though the ticket is only about 25 cents. And it was worth it; I got my fill of food that is neither cabbage nor potato and internet and bought fruit enough to make it through the week.
Snapshot: the rural bus
Riding the bus is in itself a fascinating experience. In this rural setting it felt like the bus was the bloodline of people’s lives. A single bus goes each direction out from the city and bounces its way down rougher and rougher roads as it goes out to all the tiny villages where the people depend on its arrival. One or two people stand along the side of the road, raise their hand and the bus stops. On the way out I sat next to a woman with a baby that could not have been older than 9 months. (I thought it was cute until I had to smell baby poo for a couple hours.) Virtually all the women travel with one if not two or five of their children. On the way back it was clearly mostly men returning home from work in the city. Among the interactions involved were various plastic bags of vegetables and fruit being passed in the window without other discussion or interaction involved. Its clear this happened every day, or at least at a set time with pre-arranged agreements for place, time and price. In another little village the driver simply threw out a bag of medicine and tobacco to an old man by the side of the road. They didn’t even stop the bus.
Out the window we saw sandstone mines, hard ground cut down brick by brick, fields of pepper plants, roaming goats, and isolated buildings made of sandstone and dung and dried grass. The area seems so barren and remote that’s its strange to see so many people emerging from its sandy reaches. But the Thar is the most populated desert in the world, and the people their lives here happily or not by the grace of single bus arriving daily.

It feels strange going to the city for the same reasons as the locals. We didn’t go sightsee anything. We took the long trek into town for errands. This commonality made me feel even more divided from these people. I am trying to live here for 6 weeks, always with expectation of getting back to civilization at the end. Yet, 80% of Indians live this way. A majority of the people in the world live more like this than any urban lifestyle I have ever experienced. It’s a different world really.
We came back to hang out with the children, basically about 4 girls, Lela, Puja, Umcha, ? and one boy, Rao, who follow us about alternatively speaking to us freeheartedly or patiently teaching us words in Hindi or Marabati. Then, as is now our routine we sat in our whicker changes in the common room’ listening to Dillan mandolin away or talking on random subjects, most often of all the ridiculous things we plan to do while here or when we get home. When the power randomly goes out, throwing us into the darkness ( a regular occurrence) we listen to the wind whistling through the seed pods and comprehending really being here.



permalink written by  Drie on March 9, 2008 from Jodhpur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

City is the key word

Jodhpur, India

3/9/08
Day 4…
Our day in the city. We spent four hours riding on a bus for 5 hours of time in Jodhpur. I think it may on be 50 kilometers to Jodhpur but the many stops and poor roads make it a long and bumpy trip, though the ticket is only about 25 cents. And it was worth it; I got my fill of food that is neither cabbage nor potato and internet and bought fruit enough to make it through the week.
Snapshot: the rural bus
Riding the bus is in itself a fascinating experience. In this rural setting it felt like the bus was the bloodline of people’s lives. A single bus goes each direction out from the city and bounces its way down rougher and rougher roads as it goes out to all the tiny villages where the people depend on its arrival. One or two people stand along the side of the road, raise their hand and the bus stops. On the way out I sat next to a woman with a baby that could not have been older than 9 months. (I thought it was cute until I had to smell baby poo for a couple hours.) Virtually all the women travel with one if not two or five of their children. On the way back it was clearly mostly men returning home from work in the city. Among the interactions involved were various plastic bags of vegetables and fruit being passed in the window without other discussion or interaction involved. Its clear this happened every day, or at least at a set time with pre-arranged agreements for place, time and price. In another little village the driver simply threw out a bag of medicine and tobacco to an old man by the side of the road. They didn’t even stop the bus.
Out the window we saw sandstone mines, hard ground cut down brick by brick, fields of pepper plants, roaming goats, and isolated buildings made of sandstone and dung and dried grass. The area seems so barren and remote that’s its strange to see so many people emerging from its sandy reaches. But the Thar is the most populated desert in the world, and the people their lives here happily or not by the grace of single bus arriving daily.

It feels strange going to the city for the same reasons as the locals. We didn’t go sightsee anything. We took the long trek into town for errands. This commonality made me feel even more divided from these people. I am trying to live here for 6 weeks, always with expectation of getting back to civilization at the end. Yet, 80% of Indians live this way. A majority of the people in the world live more like this than any urban lifestyle I have ever experienced. It’s a different world really.
We came back to hang out with the children, basically about 4 girls, Lela, Puja, Umcha, ? and one boy, Rao, who follow us about alternatively speaking to us freeheartedly or patiently teaching us words in Hindi or Marabati. Then, as is now our routine we sat in our whicker changes in the common room’ listening to Dillan mandolin away or talking on random subjects, most often of all the ridiculous things we plan to do while here or when we get home. When the power randomly goes out, throwing us into the darkness ( a regular occurrence) we listen to the wind whistling through the seed pods and comprehending really being here.



permalink written by  Drie on March 9, 2008 from Jodhpur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

A Jewelers Dream

Jodhpur, India

3/10/08
Day 6…
We got sick and went mad. Actually partially true… Dillan had stomach trouble in the morning, while Amy and I went jogging again. But in the afternoon illness—fever and stomach—hit Sarah and I and we were probably a little delirious. We watched Rang De Basante (famous Bollywood film), which was interesting after having seen the Legend of Bhagat Singh since it essentially parallels that story, and then two episodes of Heroes. Then we laughed to tears about the ridiculousness of our situation.
Earlier in the day we had gone for a little while to attend a training session offered by GRAVIS for a new health initiative being tested by the government. Of course, the proceedings were conducted in Marabati and Dillan (still sick) wasn’t there which meant we hadn’t a chance in hell of understanding what was going on. We felt like a distraction more than attendees as all the women stopped paying attention to Giriji lecturing up front in favor of staring at us. The situation then progressed to what has become a usual pattern in these types of situations. Women—or children or men it matters little—wearing brightly colored outfits and veils over their eyes crowd about us and begin asking questions we haven’t a clue how to answer (or understand). They are much more touchy than any American would be comfortable with and have even lifted our shirts several times, or mildly slapped to try to get our attention. This generally digresses into them pointing to our stomachs or breasts as a way of asking whether we have children or are married. When it is explained that we are not, they laugh heartily. They then point to their jewelry and our very jewelry-less earlobes…and wrists and noses and fingers and ankles and toes and upper arms.

Why don’t you have jewelry? You don’t have jewelry? Do you even have earholes? Yes. Do you even have nose holes? No. Laugh heartily. Such short hair. Yes. Why? It’s hot here. Laugh heartily. No children? No. No husband? Why? We’re students. Blank stare.

After only twenty minutes of these situations, we are generally too exhausted to continue and have to retreat back to our fort and hide our shameful earlobes.


permalink written by  Drie on March 10, 2008 from Jodhpur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment

Back in the desert

Jodhpur, India

3/10/08

Day 5….
We’ve resorted to spearing snakes and rats in the desert, while Dillan has fallen ill. Kidding about the former, serious about the latter. We continue to wait around for something to happen. Yesterday Giriji returned 2 days later than he said from visiting his family. Since he’s the only English speaker and the Field Center leader it was a relief to have him back, especially since he is our jogging partner in the early morning, this for the second time!
The cabin fever is really getting to me. Although our interactions with the families and workers here are priceless; I won’t forget sitting having my hands done with mahandi (like henna)


mahandi on our hands from GRAVIS girl
and helping to milk a goat so that chai can be made on the spot, or playing soccer outside the compound walls in the desert Fields.

village hut at sunset
But Field visits that actually encompass doing something, in fact any kind of work beside the 15 minutes ‘mutual work’ in the mode of Gandhi each morning, is likely to few rare.
Yesterday, we locked the outside doors of fort gravis and laid out in shorts and Then I did some drawing. Then I sat and stared. How long can I do this before going mad? Tom Hanks did it for two years but I don’t have the benefit of needing to do work for survival or Wilson to talk to.
No Wilson, but there are dogs. They discourage me from petting the three friendly (and relatively clean) compound dogs, though I do it anyway. I discourage them from having me hold their babies. This is a tough task considering there are babies and small children everywhere, staring curiously with charcoal decorated eyes, yelling tata! and checking my face for nonexistent jewelry. I have never interacted with children so much in my life. Rao and Umchko continue visit us daily and attempt to teach us Hindi words. If only I were in the Matrix and could upload a language things might be much easier around here.

permalink written by  Drie on March 10, 2008 from Jodhpur, India
from the travel blog: Adventures in Hindustan
Send a Compliment
Viewing 21 - 30 of 54 Entries
first | previous | next | last

View as Map View as Satellite Imagery View as Map with Satellite Imagery Show/Hide Info Labels Zoom Out Zoom In Zoom Out Zoom In
find city:
trip feed
 author feed
 trip kml
 author kml

   

Blogabond v2.40.58.80 © 2024 Expat Software Consulting Services about : press : rss : privacy