Epic Post, Part I

I think a 'Ramayana' of a post is in order. So much has happened since my last posting, I can't possibly express it all in a few paragraphs, but finding time to simply sit down and blog is difficult and internet access is spotty. Here goes, and there will be pictures (soon! I have to manually shrink the file sizes, so the whole process is extremely time consuming) to make up for what my descriptions lack...

I have now settled in with my host family, the Nahals, who live in a socioeconomically diverse residential area of Jodhpur. Coming from a country where various levels of housing are very much sectioned off, it is strange to live in a modest, middle class home, yet be sandwiched between a dirt floor home and a mini-mansion. I walk down a busy road to work each morning after going jogging on a local track (I was very happy to discover that some women do jog here, although most going walking [in full-out traditional sawar cameezes and saris, no doubt], and that, enduring copious stares because in addition to being white and blonde I am also jogging, I can jog at 6:30 in the morning before Vishnu lowers a magnifying glass so that the sun can stream through and set India on fire. I had a funny interaction the other day, actually, when I mistakenly asked 'Sportsbras kaha hai?' (Where are the sportsbras?) in an athletics store, only to remember that even alluding to breasts is considered extremely risque...the female salesclerk just sort of lowered and shook her head.)

My host family could not be more wonderful. I have a host mother (Rekha, she lets me call her 'didi,' which is a term of endearment sort of meaning 'sister'), a father (Nirmal, he lets me call him 'Bhiya,' which is a term of endearment meaning 'brother'), and two host brothers (Siddharth, 19, and Siddhanth, 14). I am consistently surprised at how well the whole family gets along, how much family time they take together. One morning I woke up to find the whole family sleeping in the same room, in the same bed, even though there is a whole other bed and couch in an adjacent room...my host mother says she prefers to sleep next to her children. She is such a sweet, simple woman, and even though it is sometimes difficult to communciate with her (I can only communicate basic concepts to her in English and Hindi, because both her English and my Hindi are by no means at the level of fluency), I feel like she still expresses a great deal of concern and affection for me...

I have become a very popular conversation piece. My host family finds my random knowledge of ancient and modern Indian cultural knowledge extremely humorous, and they like to tell stories to their friends and family members of, like, that one time Danielle bargained in Hindi at the fruit stand ('Jada hai!' (That's expensive!), and 'Kam karo!' (Bring the price down a little)), or the time she knew all about Agni, the Vedic fire god. Whenever I speak Hindi, everyone repeats exactly what I say with a little chuckle. I suppose that it seems odd to many people that an American is interested in Indian culture and is trying to speak Hindi, simply because so much of Indian youth culture attempts to mimic Western youth culture.

But the more I ask questions about various cultural nuggets (What is this spice? Are government schools much worse than private schools? Why is your neclace sacred? Is this typical for your caste? What am I eating right now?, etc, etc.), the more I continue to realize how interesting my cultural and country is. Of course, India is very exotified (this is a very relative term) in the West - we owe this to the spice trade and Christian opposition to animism/pagan traditions (many people mistakenly think that Hinduism is the direct worship of animals, which isn't true...deities such as Ganesh and Hanuman are mere avatars of God, which is described as a universal energy, close to Kabbalah's interpretation), not to mention that exotification brings tourists and, more importantly, money...

My family, to my surprise, has a very exotified view of Judaism. It's not that they view Jewish traditions and beliefs as exotic, but more so that they believe Jews to be a very small minority of the American population...it’s a very rare religion. My host father is obsessed with the fact that Jesus was Jewish, and he believed that Judaism, to a great extent, was extinguished when Jesus died. Anyway, my host father is very interested in reading Talmud…

Explaining Judaism relative to Hinduism has been fascinating, just explaining various Jewish holidays, beliefs, foods, etc. by comparing them to the Hindu tradition. I think one of the most fascinating discussions was talking about how much Christianity changed when it was translated in the King James Bible, how, before that point, the religion actually had a lot in common with Hinduism (in terms of the view of mother earth, creation, etc.).

I think that one of the things that joins Hinduism and Judaism is the ceremonial and aesthetic quality. It’s easy to describe Jewish traditions in terms of symbolic foods (my host father was very intrigued by the whole Passover sedar concept), ritual candle-lighting, blessing food and drink, marriage rituals (stepping on the glass, the chupah, etc.), and the general sacredness of speech and word. This last one is extremely important in both Vedic and Jewish traditions. The chanting of Sanskrit is, in and of itself, a sacred act, just like chanting Torah in trope is.

Field Visit

Today, we went to two rural villages about 30 minutes outside of Jodhpur with a local organization that works with the mining sector as well as migrant mining populations. These mining communities seem to be where interconnected environmental, social, and economic issues collide in devastating ways. Of course, there are the harmful environmental effects, but you also have rampant HIV/AIDS and TB due to the promiscuous behavior of migrant miners; respiratory diseases from sandstone; child labor; water contamination, the list goes on...





Alcoholism is also an enormous issue in these communities, where there is little for men to do after work except drink away both his and his wife's earnings. Men control the family earnings, and while they often have two to four mouths to feed, men in these communities drink away 60-70% of his earnings. The rest purchases desert vegetables and other cheap staples which have little nutritional value. Domestic abuse is very common.





I met several women who are forming female self-help groups in an attempt to prevent alcohol from being illegally sold in these communities (policemen are bribed so that alcohol can be sold illegally at night). These women's groups meet weekly to discuss issues like this one and develop plans of action.





It's so hard for me to think about these issues when I spend time with the children who go to these NGO-sponsored creches (small, one-room school houses)...they are just so eager to learn and practice English, recite poetry (by the way, what ever happened to poetic recitation as an art form?), sing songs, count, and play with my camera. The girls and women are breathtakingly beautiful. Two best friends, around age 8 or so, found the fact that I was sweating profusely very amusing...it was pretty hysterical: they kept immitating me panting, I would smile, and they would shrink away to giggle for a few minutes. I think my shitty Hindi also cracked them up (they learn both Hindi and English in school because their local tongue is Marwari.) Silliness seems to be much appreciated.

First Post

I've just spent two nights in the old city of Jodhpur, known for its vibrant indigo houses and intricate fabrics. Perhaps the most wonderful part of jetlag is waking up at 4:30 am and listening to the sounds of city, before the streets scream with the sound of rickshaws on cobblestone, merchants hawking their wares, motorcyclists revving their vehicles, and hammered copper pots clanking against each other as women prepare chapatis and chai for breakfast.

I was woken yesterday morning by the call to prayer, which was echoing through the narrow streets from a mosque only a few hundred yards away. It was one of the most beautiful melodies I have ever heard...the sephardic scale, which Indian and Arabic music share, has such a haunting quality, especially amidst morning silence. I went up to the rooftop deck of my hostel, where I could see the entire city and the historic fort, which is carved into the cliff less than a mile from where I was staying.

Many people sleep covered in thin tapestries on their roofs, so you just look around and see these small colorful cocoons stirring every few minutes. Slowly, people wake up and begin the day. This elderly woman, who seems to take a liking to all different shades of pink saris, got up two mornings in a row at 5 am to just lean over her balcony and look around before hanging up laundry. A man in the building across from me does yoga and meditation. A beautiful young wife brushes her teeth each morning in a beautiful orange sari, her head and face covered in the way that many Rajasthani Muslim women do: she lifts her veil slightly to spit in the polluted stepwell below her window. It's amazing how quickly this quite, slow city turns into a bustling marketplace and maze of crowded streets...

Things move very slowly here. Of course, the city is rather noisy and crowded during the day, like most Indian cities, but everyone takes his or her time. Everyone is extremely late for everything. I see men just standing around at work, people-watching or leafing through a newspaper. I've been hearing from many interns that this slow pace gets frustrating in the NGO sector, where tasks and projects take forever to complete and the fruits of labor take a great deal of time to materialize. At the same time, just being able to pause throughout the day and enjoy a cup of chai (this is one amazing thing about India: everyone has a small cup of steaming hot chai in hand all of the time, regardless of the fact that it is 120 degrees and humid) with friends and colleagues is wonderful. Margaret Mead says that studying culture allows one to understand one's own. I think that I will be experiencing that process a great deal throughout this trip, but so far, the 'Indian pace' has made me realize how out of control the US is...

Friday, I purposefully got lost. I feel perfectly safe walking around the city (Jodhpur is a very safe city in general), but being stared at, whistled at, called at all of the time is exhausting. Friday morning, I woke up and just didn't feel like dealing with the constant attention...so I forced myself to go into a bit of 'training,' simply by walking around and getting used to feeling uncomfortable. Probably the hardest part is not making eye contact with men, one of the keys to avoiding confrontation by 'inviting' unwanted advances. The humorous part was acting like I had a destination even though I was walking aimlessly.

One of things that is so jarring is the contrast between the extreme poverty and the vibrant colors, both of which abound here: the soot, dirt, cow dung, piles of half-eaten dal against bright blue buildings or at the feet of women dressed in brilliant orange and green saris. This seems to be a general metaphor for Indian society. India's booming economy is only reaching 20% of the population. Colorful, energetic Hindi films only express the lifestyles and concerns of the upper castes, totally ignoring the economic depravity of those living in slums and in rural areas. This goes for any society, of course, but the contrast is especially stark here: there are too many people for anyone to spread out, for the classes to really separate into different spaces. Everyone is just crammed together in this overwhelming clusterfuck of wealthy, poor, progressive, traditional, Hindu, Muslim, Jain, Sikh, Catholic, craftspeople, IT specialists, etc. Societal compartmentalizations are much like Indian traffic patterns...they don't exist.