Lost in Translation

At lunch today...

Colleague #1: Please pass the bowel.
Colleague #2: (in a whisper) It's bowL not, bowEl....
Colleague #1: What did I say? What is bowel then?
Colleague #2: (still in a whisper and with appropriate hand gestures) Moooootions....
Colleague #1: Ahh... riiiiight....

Delhi Sun and Daughter

The Delhi heat has officially arrived. I, for one, somewhat underestimated the claims of the unbearable, oppressive nature of the heat and am now a true believer. An unforgiving sun beats down the entire day, emptying the streets (well, almost) and forcing a hasty retreat into air conditioned rooms. Even the occasional breeze is somewhat unwelcome as layers of accumulated dust rush skyward and land on the non-dupatta/scarf/stole/gumcha-wearing (well, maybe that just includes me) masses.

As a somewhat adopted daughter of Delhi, I am experiencing my first true Indian summer. Spending as little time at my non-air-conditioned flat as possible, I have taken to café-hopping and usually start in Market Café in Khan Market, the upscale, ex-pat-wife-frequenting market in Central Delhi. The free internet, air conditioning, and friendly staff who don’t seem to mind my five hour respites in their café make for the perfect escape.

As Delhi’s adopted daughter, I have also recently experienced a newfound sense of pride in my city. Upon arriving in Delhi, my old boss gave me a copy of City of Djinns, which for some reason I didn’t begin reading until last month. For those of you who have experienced the chaos of Pahar Ganj and Chandni Chowk and swear that Delhi is a crowded cesspool of pollution and lecherous men, read City of Djinns and have a bit of a perspective change. As Dalrymple describes, “Delhi, it seemed at first, was full of riches and horrors: it was a labyrinth, a city of palaces, an open gutter, filtered light through a filigree lattice, a landscape of domes, an anarchy, a press of people, a choke of fumes, a whiff of spices.” But then you look for a little more, dig a little deeper and it offers itself up like a history book, a grandfather telling old stories of times long gone.

The appreciation for my new home was immediate. Layer upon layer (seven cities to be exact), Delhi offers a history and a character unlike any city I have ever lived in (yes, I know, shocking even though I do hail from the birthplace of civil rights and Civil War).

Rickshaw rides through Hauz Khas have changed from black-booger-inducing-new-swamp-ass-prevention-technique-exercising-rides to eyes wide open attempts to catch a glimpse of the medresse or ancient water tank that Dalrymple describes in the book.

The love of his adopted city is apparent as well and is infectious.

Basically, if you have been here, come back and rediscover the city, if you have never been, then, um, come visit!

Cutting for Stone

Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese

Theirs is the stoneless fruit of love
Whose love is returned.
~ Tiruvalluvar, The Kuralu

“I hope one day you will see this as clearly as I did in Kerchele. The key to your happiness is to own your own slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don’t. if you keep saying your slippers aren’t yours, then you’ll die searching, you’ll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny.”

He was teaching me how to die, just as he’d taught me how to live.

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
~William Yeats, “The Choice”

Rediscovering Tom Robbins

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins

When the mystery of the connection goes, love goes. It’s that simple. This suggests that it isn’t love that is so important to us but the mystery itself. The love connection may be merely a device to put us in contact with the mystery, and we long for love to last so that the ecstasy of being near the mystery will last. It is contrary to the nature of mystery to stand still. Yet it’s always there, somewhere, a world on the other side of the mirror, a promise in the next pair of eyes that smile at us. we glimpse it when we stand still.
The romance of new love, the romance of solitude, the romance of objecthood, the romance of ancient pyramids and distant stars are means of making contact with the mystery. When it comes to perpetuating it, however, I got no advice. But I can and will remind you of two of the most important fact I know:
(1) Everything is part of it.
(2) It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.

Funny how we think of romance as always involving two, when the romance of solitude can be ever so much more delicious and intense. Alone, the world offers itself freely to us. to be unmasked, it has no choice.

CHOICE. A person’s looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we’ve been handed by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That’s the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall.

When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. when, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on – series polygamy – until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to out lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.

“Well, do you think it’s possible to make love stay?”
“Sure. It’s not at all unusual for love to remain for a lifetime. It’s passion that doesn’t last. I still love my first husband. But I don’t desire him. Love lasts. It’s lust that moves out on us when we’re not looking, it’s lust that always skips town – and love without lust just isn’t enough.”

Love is the ultimate outlaw. It just won’t adhere to any rules. The most any of us can do is to sign on as its accomplice. Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we should swear to aid and abet. That would mean that security is out of the question. The words “make” and “stay” become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attached. I love you for free.

There is only one serious question. And that is:
Who knows how to make love stay?

Camel to Pakistan

Recently, my second visitor from the States came to India and we immediately set out for the Thar Desert near Jaisalmer. I had visited this desert city on my first backpacking expedition in India and was looking forward to another night under the stars, camel jaunts under the moonlight, perpetual flatulence, waking with the sunrise and cheesy, rehearsed rhymes from our camel guides (“No aloo, no chai, no woman, no cry,” or something to that effect).

The camel trek and the desert were similar to what I remembered, but the feeling of being a backpacker seemed a bit strange, a bit off. It started in the 2AC tier car that we started our journey in. Standing on the platform with an amoebic mass of Europeans, we frantically scurried down the platform in search of our car (although the above signs indicated we had been standing at the right place, we should have known better). Traveling 2AC was quite the luxury for me, double the price of the affordable sleeper class. But after my friend provided her own perspective about the pricing (“Um, traveling 900 kilometers for only $25 when parking costs me that much in Baltimore, I choose the higher class”), I opted for the splurge.

We were sharing a car with a kind British couple who, after being married for three months, embarked on an 18 month around the world adventure. We were meeting up with them in month 18 and they indicated that their most difficult travels had been through India.

Thus it began. My reinsertion into the world of backpackers.

The hotel we stayed at was chock-full of backpackers of every ilk, the older tourists, the families, the couples on vacation, the hardcore around-the-worlders. Somehow I felt incredibly out of place with these people passing through India. Everyone seemed to have a negative view of Delhi and were amazed that anyone would choose to live in Delhi. How was I finding it? How was I dealing with the pollution? The staring? The heat? The work? The rickshaws?

Living: Please refer to this Business Week article.
Pollution: I try and travel and get out of the pollution as much as possible.
Staring: I’ve learned that flicking people off is a universal symbol of anger and pissed-offedness.
Heat: Find air conditioning. Or make friends that have it. (side note: when asked what I did this weekend, I told my colleague I was in search of air conditioning. Her response? Go to ATMs. Which wouldn't be sketchy at all. Standing in an ATM for hours on end. Riiiiiight.)
Work: Learning and getting a new, appreciated perspective.
Rickshaws: Just hold on.

It’s conversations like this that make me feel, in some odd way, accomplished. In sum, although it may be an ongoing love/hate relationship, it’s usually more love than hate and I will definitely be back.

** For more photos from Jaisalmer, click here.

Room to Read Visit

A few months ago, during some random internet searching, I came across the website for the non-profit Room to Read and saw that they offered site visits.

So Friday I went to visit Room to Read, hear about their work in India, and visit one of the schools where they have opened a library and a positive space to read and learn. The model is relatively simple and based on the founder, John Wood's, experience in Nepal in bringing basic access to education and space to learn to rural schools there. In addition to establishing libraries, Room to Read also constructs schools, runs their own publishing company and so produces books in local language, fosters girls education and establishes computer labs. Big crush on this NGO basically.

I enjoyed learning about their franchise model that has been built from the original plan of Room to Read. It seems that the headquarters offices have provided models for country offices to follow, but are extremely flexible in determining how and who to partner with to ensure the sustainability and efficacy of these reading rooms. For example, the India country office only partners with the government (3 year MOUs) because it provides another level of sustainability, although they are currently not working in an advocacy role. Further, HQ provides the parameters for monitoring and evaluation, which it seems all the country offices adhere to, in order to provide accurate records of indicators from reading room attendance to the number of books checked out of each room.

In any case, it was one of my best mornings in India; we visited the reading room, where the local partner has provided a facilitator that teaches the students each day and then I was lucky enough to have some of the students read to me from their books.

It was refreshing to get a new perspective from a successful, impactful education NGO that is constantly evolving and working towards positive social change. Reminded me why I decided to come to India many moons ago, which I sometimes too easily forget in being here...

Balding in India

It took a few months, but all my suspicions were confirmed at our midpoint retreat earlier this year.

It's the water.

And it's making my hair fall out.

Some of the other female fellows have been experiencing similar hair loss so we were able to commiserate about the steadily increasing number of hair follicles that litter our bathroom floors. About two months ago, on the recommendation of another fellow, I took a little visit to Dr. Batra's, a homeopathy clinic. Although Dr. Priyanka had one of the worst bedside manners I've ever encountered possibly in life, I was terrified leaving my consultation and immediately signed up for the therapy immediately.

Goodbye rupees, hello mysterious small white capsules of herbal medicine. Let's see what happens.

Tripping out in Delhi

So basically I have no clue how I am going to acclimatize to life in the America again.

Last week I went to a going away dinner-cum-drinks-cum-music show. The performance was at Cafe Morrison (please try and guess what the ambience was like) and was a group called Bass Foundation. It was a funky mix of reggae, garage, hip hop and lots of other mish mash of music by some Brits that mysteriously had Caribbean accents. I couldn't tell if it was a Shaggy sort of accent or the real deal....

Anyways, I was shell-shocked and required two Newcastles to calm my nerves. I was, first of all, surrounded by foreigners. Or at least what seemed like a lot of foreigners (although it was actually about half-half non-Indo/Indo mix). These foreigners were gyrating every which way, the white boys were doing the odd, awkward white boy bounce with a seeming disregard or misunderstanding of the "rhythm", the girl I was with was trying to drag me closer to the speakers as she partook in said gyration, I saw my Indicorps friend with a newly sprouted, very masculine South Indian 'stache (this is odd because Indicorps fellows are supposedly partaking in the Gandhi-esque lifestyle, of which I doubt gyration was a large part), there was sweat and music and ahhhhh!!! I couldn't deal with it all. Nursing my Newscastles, I found a perfect spot next to the wall and observed. And then I asked myself, how will I handle America, land of the scantily-clad and home of the free from inhibitions.

I'm scurrrrrrrrrrrrrrrred.