“So, how was India?”**

This question is impossible to answer. Having lived abroad before, I’ve received it a number of times (insert relevant country/city). There are long and short answers to these friendly queries, helping me to really figure out what I did for the past ten months, why I originally came to India, and why India will always be a part of my life, a port of call, a home.

Because I will return to living in Washington, DC, a city notorious for unabashed networking young professionals, I expect meetings with new and old acquaintances will eventually uncover that I lived in India for the past year. Sometimes attention spans are short and intentions disingenuous in our nation’s capital. The long answers are reserved for those special people who probably wouldn’t inquire about my job as their first or second question anyway. But I digress. I imagine conversations to unfold as follows…

New friend: Wow. India. How was that?
(short answer) Me: It was great. Thanks.
(long answer) Me: India is a country of fascinating juxtapositions and extremes, confluence, confusion, chaos, culture, spirituality, wealth and beauty. I lived in India for only ten months and expect that after living there for ten years I would still not be privy to the inner workings of the Indian mind and culture.


New friend: So what did you do in India?
(short answer) Me: I worked at a women’s rights NGO in Delhi.
(long answer) Me: I was an American India Foundation Service Corps Fellow (for eight months) and a Clinton Fellow (for two months). I worked with a human rights organization called Breakthrough, whose India office focuses on women’s rights, specifically gender and sexuality, reproductive and sexual health, domestic violence and HIV/AIDS stigma and discrimination, using “edutainment” (media education) as a platform for social awareness campaigns. I was mainly responsible for communications collateral and producing training materials.

In my spare time, I traveled extensively throughout the country, took approximately 2,948,7592,875 pictures, practiced kickboxing, attended one yoga session and found breathing out one nostril at a time silly and booger-inducing, discovered the wonders of tailored clothing, took Hindi lessons yet am still unable to read Devanagari, read a lot of books, drank a lot of chai, learned to live without air conditioning (and thus hopefully never take it for granted again), got engaged, met some truly quality individuals, and as our Program Manager instructed us at orientation, learned to embrace the boredom.


New friend: Why did you go to India?
(short answer) Me: I love chicken tikka.
(long answer) Me: I had worked at what in common parlance is known as "The Bank" for about two and a half years at a small grants program called the Development Marketplace (DM). A large part of my work at the DM was monitoring small-scale, innovative projects; I interfaced with inspiring social entrepreneurs from around the world. Feeling as though there was a disconnect between my work at the Bank and on-the-ground implementation, I applied for this fellowship to bridge that gap in my experience.


New friend: And how did that work out for you?
(short answer) Me: It was a good learning experience.
(long answer) Me: It did and didn’t. My work at the DM was far more substantive and although I was working in a headquarters in Washington, DC, I felt like I was having more of a “development impact” in my job there. I was told by my colleagues in India multiple times that I was being underutilized, an appreciated comment and recognition, but disheartening nonetheless.

So I reached out to other organizations in India in my spare time - wrote grant proposals for a sustainable energy NGO based in Hyderabad and did some research for an education technology company in Delhi to supplement the work I am doing at Breakthrough. Tried to make it work. Tim Gunn would be proud.

But living in India and working in an Indian NGO were invaluable experiences. I was the only foreigner in my office of thirteen people, ten of whom are women (the two accountants and the office assistant are the only men). I worked with empowered, independent women who have a true passion to advance human rights throughout India and hope to tackle issues such as religion, caste, and peace and conflict in the future.


New friend: Do you think you will go back?
(short answer) Me: Of course.
(long answer) Me: Hopefully, I will be able to go back to India, not only to visit, but also perhaps to live and work. India is a country that grabs hold of the imagination, the senses and the intellect in a way that I have not experienced in any other country. It is a frightfully frustrating place; the highs and lows are extreme and can happen within two minutes of each other, but the entrepreneurial spirit and hopes for the future are undaunted by the vast and deep inequalities that continue to handicap a large percentage of the population. I am forever tied to this vivid country; I will be back.





** this is my blog post for the official AIF Clinton Fellow blog. I neglected to mention that when I do come back to India... if it's to work, it will be armed with the following: more education so that I can actually "do" more and contribute in a more tangible, productive manner, air conditioning, a driver, and an international staff salary. But thought maybe that would not be appropriate to mention in the official blog... erg.....

The Proposal

Perhaps all the signs were there that John was going to propose on this trip. Some friends thought it would happen in London in February, others at the Taj Mahal when John first arrived in India. Being so far from home, I was unaware of the wagers being placed back in DC.

Our tour of the south of India began last Saturday; after flying to Trivandrum, the capital of Kerala, we drove down the coast to the southernmost tip of the Indian peninsula, to a town called Kanyakumari, where the waters of the Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, and the Arabian Sea meet. An important pilgrimage site as well, we maneuvered through the crowds on the beach waiting for the sun to set. All eyes were set on the horizon, and we watched the sun disappear over the waters where Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes were immersed.

The next morning we awoke late, unable to motivate to see the sunrise, and headed for Varkala. We stopped along the way at Kovalam Beach before making it to the red sand cliff beaches of Varkala. Little did I know that John had intended to propose in Kanyakumari with the sunrise; the symbolism-laden time and place would surely have made a lovely proposal story, but the cloudy sunrise and my unwillingness to wake up and less-than-sunny morning demeanor negated that option.

From Varkala we traveled to Alleppey to board our houseboat that would take us through the famous backwaters of Kerala, which is aptly known as “god’s own country.” The day was perfectly relaxing and scenic – the backwaters, although they have recently become increasingly populated as the tourist scene is growing in the south, function as canals divided by thin strips of land. Since it is the low season, the waterways weren’t clogged with too many other houseboats.


We sailed calmly down the canals, helping the captain to steer the boat, eating deliciously-prepared tiger prawns and fresh veggies, bird watching and relishing our vacation time together. After the sun set, we ate more scrumptious food. After dinner, I turned away from John to put something in my camera bag, and when I turned around John was staring at me. Odd, I thought. Perhaps too much Kingfisher for John? I remember hearing the words “perfect for each other” and then the rest was jumbled until the “will you marry me?” came out of his mouth. Somewhere between those two phrases I think I realized what was happening. I think I said something like “are you serious?” (some of you know John’s proclivity for “fake” proposing by getting down on one knee… “Carolyn, will you… pass the salt?” I know - warped sense of humor). After realizing that he was in fact serious this time, he surprised me even further by producing a ring from his pocket. Although we had discussed not spending money on an engagement ring, I now cherish the new blingity bling on my left hand!



The details of the proposal from John’s side are quite endearing – the fake search for coffee early that morning so he could call my parents, buying the ring in India, writing drafts of the proposal on his desktop in a folder labeled as a work document so I wouldn’t open it…

Like I said at the beginning, I guess all the signs should have been there. On this trip, I was re-reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera in an attempt to find a quote to read at the marriage of a close friend this fall. I finished the book on board the houseboat and asked John if I could read the ending to him. The end of the book finds the protagonists traveling along the waterways, content in their newfound love, meandering down the river at an unhurried pace, savoring each other’s company.

The Captain looked at Fermina Daza and saw on her eyelashes the first glimmer of wintry frost. Then he looked at Florentino Ariza, his invincible power, his intrepid love, and he was overwhelmed by the belated suspicion that it is life, more than death, that has no limits.
“And how long do you think we can keep up this goddamn coming and going?” he asked.
Florentino Ariza had kept his answer ready for fifty-three years, seven months, and eleven days and nights.
“Forever,” he said.

John’s proposal is now written in the front of the book. Although I have had my answer ready for far less time than the fifty-three years of Florentino's wait, it was always, unquestionably, without a doubt, a “yes.”




** Click below for more photos from my Picasa Album:

South India Tour with John (June 2009)