I wasn't aware I had a love life in India.

[OK, OK, the blog's not over yet.]

I remember once, towards the beginning of the summer when Jishnu, the son of Vikramshila's director, walked in the office. He started talking to KP, and she starting talking back. They did not touch, they did not say anything mushy, but I thought to myself, "They are an item." Immediately afterwards, I reined myself back in.

"No, no, Sam. Cultural signals are different in foreign countries. What you think is a signal of affection may well be a signal of some other feeling; gastrointestinal pain, for example."

And yet, a week later, Jishnu and KP and I all went out to dinner the next week. I told Jishnu and KP about Rachel, the girlfriend from back home*, at which point KP told me, "Yeah, Jishnu and I are a thing." A few days later, someone told me that thing actually meant that they are engaged.

Then, last month at the Lake Centre, Swarupa, a very cute 13 year old girl, and Subhadeep, a very cute 14 year old boy, would not stop punching each other. I was trying to lead some activity (probably very boring) and they were refusing to pay attention. I debated with myself whether or not to intervene, until it occurred to me that when teenage boys and girls touch each other, it's probably because they enjoy touching each other.

So, I've been feeling pretty good about my ability to interpret intercultural romantic signals. People flirt pretty much the same way everywhere, I was beginning to believe, and I, observant fellow that I am, can read this not-so-secret lenguaje de amor.

Until today. I had asked KP and Shubhra if they would like to go out to lunch with me before I take off to Delhi. Shubhra, at least, will be gone when I return, so I thought it would be a nice goodbye to people who have been very good friends to me since I've been here. Shubhra, as it turned out, was busy; but as of this morning, KP and I were still on.

I was reading at the table in the office's modest conference room, when KP plopped down across from me. She said,

"I don't think we should go out to lunch today."
"Oh, that's too bad," I replied.
"I think you'll agree with me once you hear my reasons." She was giving me the classic KP smirk, but seemed to be getting more serious by the second.
"Well, you are very persuasive."
"You see, relationships between men and women are very different in India, and there's all this gossip in the office. About how you and I have been spending a lot of time together alone."
"We have?" I asked.
"Well, you know, we were both in the office last weekend alone," she explainied
"We were working. In the office." She remained expressionless. I continued the explanation: "Where people work."
"Well, but you always come talk to me before talking to other people in the office, and they are wondering, 'why did he ask KP out to lunch and not anyone else.'"

Absolutely none of this stuff had been on my radar at all--so much for stealth-like interpretation of romantic signals. When she told me that even our physical proximity had sent up the antennae of our gossip-starved co-workers, I was completely dumbfounded, "What physical proximity?" I started laughing at the absurdity of the whole thing. My sense of humor about the matter was not appreciated. KP told me to quiet down, lest I provoke further speculation.

"And it's hard too, because they all know Jishnu," she said. I was confused.
"Why wouldn't that make them less suspicious?"
"Well, because then he's the poor guy who doesn't know what's going on behind his back. And since I've been told by people that you like me, and I continue to lead you on in this way, then I'm partner to the whole thing."

I was, at this point, utterly befuddled. She seemed to be saying that being aware of an untrue accusation (that Sam and KP are having some romantic fling) compelled her to act differently, in case she encourage my non-existent behavior.

"So people think that you have this crush on me." KP pauses, becomes more serious. "Do you?"
"No," I responded. "Well, I mean, I like you, and I like talking to you, but I certainly don't...I main, I wouldn't want to....no."
"OK."

What was so difficult about her question was that: yes, of course I have a crush on her, in the same way that I have a crush on so many of my good friends. What's a crush except enthusiasm about a person? But all of this, the revelation of all these thoughts, the quiet accusation, put me on the defensive. I felt like a 5th grader trying to deny my classmates' jeers--"No way. I don't like girls. Girls are gross."

"So, if the way you and I behave is cause for office gossip, is there a way we could have acted that would not have made people talk?" She thought for a minute.
"No, I don't think so."
"Then are men and women just not friends in India?"
"Not really."

I have been better friends with KP than with other people in the office, in part because of the time she's spent in the US. That gives her the ability to speak my cultural language a little bit, which is obvoiusly welcome. Furthermore, I'm not sure exactly who in the office people expected me to be friends with; I was the only male.

The more I think about this whole thing, the madder I get about it. I composed a short speech in my head after KP left to go do something.

"KP," I would say, in this imaginary world, "I'm mad at you about the lunch thing. Essentially, you're saying you'd prefer to bypass mild ridicule on the part of people in the office, rather than say a proper goodbye to a friend who you likely won't see for years."

Intstead I said, "Well, I guess I'll see you sometime, then," and waved, and marched off to catch my plane to Delhi. At the time, I reasoned that, on my last day, there was simply no compelling reason to ruffle feathers, and that it's better to leave on good terms. But really, I said nothing because I feared that this misunderstanding was simply the inevitable result of the wide, impassable cultural canyon separating KP and I. That's the classic crutch: "It's culture." KP had explained it that way, arguing, "you couldn't understand--things are just different in India." We, as individuals, had no part in the interaction--it was just the natural result of two opposite civilizations making contact. An Orientalist theory of friendship.

What I mean is, I didn't tell KP I was mad at her, I didn't afford her the respect I afford my closest friends, because she's Indian. And so, on the day I left Kolkata, I felt as as alien as I did on the day I arrived.

*Rachel, ie Raquel, has a fantastic blog about being in Juarez, Mexico, so here's a little blog tag-team shout-out action: www.encontrandolafrontera.blogspot.com.

Leaving Kolkata

It’s now just two weeks and one day before I head back to the US. I’ve finished all my work with Vikramshila, and said goodbye to the kids at the school. Having begun the process of leaving, I’m kind of ready to go. But there is a little more to do yet. I fly to Delhi tomorrow. From there I'm going to Rajasthan. While I hope to post a couple more times, this ends the regular onslaught of blogging.

I could not have planned a better trip. My accomodation with the Chatterjees let me inside the life of an Indian family, while providing me with more freedom than I would have had on a typical abroad program. Plus, I got home-cooked Indian food as frequently as I wanted it. My job involved doing primary research on topics that I find fascinating, and which may end up being relevant to what I do after I graduate. As an added bonus, Vikramshila is an organization that I actually believe in, which is something of a rarity in the development world. I had conversations with dozens of people I’ll never see again, and I became close with KP and Shubhra, two extremely warm and devastatingly intelligent women. Furthermore, the job had me travel all over West Bengal, conducting interviews with teachers, students, and farmers. I should emphasize how unreasonably nice to me the folks at Vikramshila have been: unreasonably nice.

I envied at times the group of Irish volunteers who invited me out for drinks a couple of times—hikings through Sikkim during the monsoon is probably more fun with a buddy or two—but their program involved fairly little involvement with the city on its own terms, and limited personal interaction with people who live here. Being more or less on my own in Kolkata gave me a sense of what it might be like to think of Jodphur Park as home.

And writing this blog and reading all the great comments from people back home (some of whom I don’t even know) has been a great way to process this summer—I would never have been as prolific or organized if I had been keeping a private journal. I was always looking for interesting things to write about, and was perpetually thinking about how my observations and generalizations might come off to someone reading about them on the web, which led me to think critically not only about what I saw, but how I was interpreting it—you people kept me on my toes. Thanks.

K-tick and Pujie asked me a few posts back about why I got interested in India to begin with. I kind of like the idea of concluding this blog with an introduction of sorts.

It would be romantic to say that I’ve always been interested in India. While I did do my second grade country project on Asian elephats and Bengal tigers and the Taj Mahal, that doesn’t exactly consitute a life-long curiousity. And my decision to come here certainly wasn’t inspired by a spiritual awakening or something.

It basically comes down to this; last summer’s exciting office job left me feeling pretty claustrophobic being home in Northern Virginia: and I vowed, there in the scanning room, that I wouldn’t sit around for another 4 months, doing nothing but waiting for school to start up again. I looked around for an internship in Latin America, but nothing popped up. Finally, I asked a professor at Earlham where he thought I should go for the summer, for the dual purposes of travel and personal edification. He mentioned that he was the president of Vikramshila (which I had of course never heard of) and would I like to work with them?

So the decision to go io India was in fact somewhat ad hoc, but I knew enough to be fascinated at the mere suggestion. India is so big, with such a huge a rapidly growing population; it might be on the verge of meaningful economic progress; it has an epic and expansive living history; my Quaker upbringing impressed upon me a deep respect for the pascifist principles of Gandhi; and I was already in love with the food. Every other case study in economics is from Indian, and my coursework has been India-centric thanks to my two Indian professors, Raja and Atindra. After some vague e-mailing in which I was vaguely assued I’d have a room to rent, I took the plunge, and bought the plane ticket. (Well, my mommy bought the plane ticket. But she was more or less compensated later thanks to a grant from the Plowshares people at the Lilly Foundation.) Excited for the trip, I started to read obsessively, and even but in a fair but ultimately futile effort at picking up Bengali.

Upon arrival, too, the numerous parallels between the US and India immediately sucked me in. Caste in India is treated similarly to race in my home country. Both nations suffer from prominent political parties that are alligned with religious fundamentalists, although India had the good sense to throw their’s out of the majority after one terrible term. Both are dealing with Islamic-fundamentalist terrorism. India is so different and so the same from where I come from; how could I not be intrigued?

But the moments that have been the most astonishing have nothing to do with the nation’s political climate nor its turbulent history. I am regularly amazed just walking to work, seeing the amount and intensity of human activity; the haggling salesmen, the owners of tea stalls, the beggars, conversations flying by in half-a-dozen languagesthe tiny sidewalk temples where people offer puja and burn incense as the mass of pedestrians wander by. Some days, upon considering the plight of Kolkata’s poor, I wonder how the city survives from day to day: but under closer inspection, it’s the persistence and adaptability of people that is the norm here, and desperation and hopelessness the exception. Some days, I want to run up to people in the street and ask, “Do you see how amazing this all is?”

“The Death and Life of Great American Cities” is one part interdisciplinary treatise against modern urban planning, and one part love poem to New York—Jacob’s New York, where she grew up, and which provided her with a world to explore and thousands of people to inspire her. She writes (and I’m paraphrasing here, but just barely), “There is a quality worse than ugliness, and that quality is imposed order, which strangles the real order underneath that is trying to make itself known.” To Jacobs, the daily routine of New York or Kolkata is a ballet, in which the dancers perform entirely independent and perfectly complimentary roles. You could never design something like this, and when people try, they end up with something superficial or worse.

Kolkata has so much character—that collection of peculiarities that bind 15 million people by more than just geography. There are all of the knick-knacks that hang from the bumpers of buses and autorickshaws (a pair of sandals, a garland of limes and green chiles) put there allgedly to keep away the evil eye. There are the extremely creative billboard advertising campaigns that build suspense for weeks before revealing their product. There’s the nerdy Bengali culture, which provides the foundation for the sprawling book market on College St. and which ensures that everybody, from school children to rickshaw drivers, knows who Satyajit Ray is. There’s the remarkable ambivalence to the city’s British heritage, which gave Kolkata its architectural flair and gave West Bengal the terrible famine of 1943 which killed two million people. And there’s the cynical leftist political attitude, disallusioned with Communist rule, but committed to the sickle and hammer by habit if nothing else. Everyday, a small group of workers will beat a drum and march around for a couple of hours, just to show who’s boss.

I’m sure that people will ask me when I get home, “How did you like India?” It seems like a tricky question to answer. Whenever I hear people complian that they hate it here, for one reason or another (it hasn’t happened frequently), I feel like telling them that nobody gave them permission to hate the place, to pass judgment on it in that way. And similarly, I’m not sure a foreigner can say, “I love Kolkata!” without sounding arrogant. Loving or hating a place somehow assumes a knowledge of it, a knowledge that is comprehensive and provides the basis for a judgment. This is how too many Westerners have approached the East.

I can say this: Kolkata was good to me, and I met a lot of wonderful people. It taught me a lot, and it gave me a lot to write about. That has to say something.

I'm excited for my last round of sightseeing, but I'm also excited to come home, and see the Northern Virginia crew, and eat a Dos Manos.

You stay classy, the internet.

The benefits of being made culturally uncomfortable

A few Saturdays back, I went to the Lake Centre to play some math games with the kids. We did math for a while, until they got bored. At that point, they handed me some lyrics from a song they learned in school, and asked me to sing it. I looked at the lyrics and laughed—the song, “Bind us Together, Lord,” was a hymn their teachers at the Catholic school had taught them. I had a really hard time convincing them that I didn’t know the tune.

It was during this disagreement when a cadre of Irish college students dropped by to visit. Their organizer had contacted Vikramshila as part of their volunteer program—they are teaching in Kolkata for the summer, as well as learning about development by attending some debates and lectures, as well as observing various NGOs. They all crowded into the already crowded room, and started chatting with the kids. Within a couple of minutes, we discovered that we were heading to Delhi on the same day. But the moment they won me over for good, if they hadn’t already with their Irish charm and friendliness and good looks, is when they proposed a song exchange with the kids. The 10 Irish students performed “Peel banana.” For your reading convenience, I transcribe the lyrics here, along with a description of the accompanying dance:

“Peel banana!! Peel, peel banana!” 2x [slow slide of the hands down the side of the body]
“Chop banana! Chop, chop banana!” 2x [karatae chop motion, alternating hands]
“Mash banana! Mash, mash banana!” 2x [appropriate and convincing mashing gesture]
“Go banana! Go, go bananas!” 2x [uninhibited flailing of arms and legs]
The kids, in return, sang “Bind us Together, Lord.” I was slightly afraid that the Irish folks might imagine I had taught these six Hindu children a Catholic hymn—in any case, they seemed to share my sense of cultural embarrassment. But, being the good papists that they are, several of them chimed in.

Immediately after the meeting, I was invited up to watch the rugby match that several of the guys (er, blokes) were playing in. I happily agreed.

The match was played at the Calcutta Cricket and Football Club (CC&FC), which is a holdover from the British era, although the vast majority of the present members are Indians. It has a posh clubhouse and a bar with discount drinks for members. The Irish students have a temporary membership thanks to their participation on the CC&FC Rugby team. I had a really nice time watching the game and drinking a couple of beers on the porch of the clubhouse as the evening cooled down. Brendon and I spent a long time talking politics, which involved me apologizing a lot for living in a country where we elected Bush, and him explaining the Irish government system to me. Somewhere in the conversation, I mentioned to Brendon that Americans, especially people from blue states, tend to have romantic notions of Europe, the enlightened and liberal place where they are civilized enough to have good trains and universal health care. Some of this is well-deserved, but some of if is a warm and fuzzy caricature of a place that has its fair share of race riots and fascists. I mentioned that the stereotypical American is that of a loudmouth cowboy. Brendon added that America is the place where they make candy bars out of corn syrup.

I was invited to play a game of football (er, soccer) the next afternoon. I happily said I would come, while warning them that I was, in fact, very bad at football. They told me not to worry.

When I arrived at CC&FC the next afternoon at 3:30, only one of the guys had shown up. Mike and I sat and talked for an hour until we had enough people to play a smallish game. The group, it seems had been out to the clubs until 5:45 in the AM, and was just about getting over their massive hangovers. We played around for a while, which was fun enough, although I was so bad that I didn’t do very much. I think I stayed out of the way enough to avoid interfering.

Later, having a drink on the porch again, I had a chat with a really nice guy named Brian, who is studying environmental science. He told me about his year in France, which he said was a blast, and about how eye-opening he finds India. It seemed like he and I would have a lot in common.

But after some conversational digging, it seemed like we had less in common than I had imagined, at least in terms of our trips to India. We started talking about the food. He said that he loved Indian food, but that it had become a bit monotonous. Their group goes out to eat for all their meals, he said, and they tend to visit the same nearby places. I asked him if they ate a lot of samosas (pyramid-shaped fritters stuffed with potatoes) and dosas (a South Indian lentil pancake that you dip in all kinds of stuff) and he had neither heard of either. I figured out why a couple minutes later when one of the guys said, “I just can’t be bothered to eat vegetarian food.” Nothing wrong with that, of course, but it pays to be flexible with your eating habits, especially in a country where so much of the good cuisine is meatless.

And another thing he said surprised me even more—Brian and some of the guys briefly discussed going out to catch a movie. One candidate was Krishh, which is sort of an Indian Superman given the Bollywood treatment—it’s three and a half hours long, and has a ton of song and dance numbers. I mentioned that it was in Hindi, to which Brian replied, “Well, but they’ll have English subtitles, won’t they?” I said I was pretty sure they wouldn’t, which was a big surprise to the whole group. Why they thought that a Hindi movie playing in India would have English subtitles is beyond me.

I realize I’m running the risk of seeming condescending here—“Oooh look at me, I have the more authentic Indian experience”—but I am thankful to have been thrown into a situation where I’ve had to sink or swim a little bit. I remember how KP introduced me to some issues of Indian etiquette. We were sitting in a teacher training meeting, and the fan above me was blowing away a piece of paper I had been taking notes on. I put the paper under my toe. Later, KP told me, “In India, we don’t touch things with our feet. It’s considered a sign of disrespect.” I apologized and told her that no disrespect was intended to the material of the workshops.

“Oh, I know,” she said. “But we just don’t do it.” KP spent six years in the states, and she knew that I thought I was just being practical. And while she understood my explanation, there are just some things you’re supposed to do.

But, when you’re in a big group of other white people, even if they are supposedly infused with a fair deal of European civility, it’s easy not to pick up on those things. To take an example, Brendon told me about being in a local bar. He was trying to get the attention of a local woman, so he, innocently enough, tapped her on the shoulder. Immediately, the woman’s brother and her husband descended upon him, and the program coordinator stepped in to try and prevent the imminent fight. In the end, the whole group was thrown out.

What’s more is that the Irish students had an orientation where they were explicitly told, “don’t touch Indian women!” I don’t know why I’ve never run into this problem, never having been warned about it: but I think it has to do with spending a lot of time around Indian people here, and watching their behaviors, and trying to go with the flow. Don’t get me wrong; I’ve had my fair share of cultural blunders, and made incorrect presumptions. But because I’ve constantly been around Indians, I’ve both had the ability to correct an understanding or an action (by talking to people around me), and the necessity to correct it (or else I offend all of my friends).

Not to say I don’t like the Irish folks—in fact, they are rather wonderful. They befriended me instantly, and they are both interested in what they are seeing here in India, and committed to having a really good time. I intend to meet up with them in Delhi, where they’ve invited me to go to a series of seminars and debates on development. They are a blast to hang out with. I just feel fortunate that I’ve had the opportunity to get pushed off of the path of least resistance that tends to suck in so many travelers.

A Serious Consequence of Environmental Degradation Hitherto Unknown to Western Science

(Some of this material may be unsuitable for children between the ages of 65 and 90, provided they are my grandparents and I might have to talk to them about this later).

The Sun Temple was built on the seashore of Orissa, West Bengal’s south-westerly neighbor, by a 13th century Hindu monarch upon the defeat of the area’s Muslim rulers. 7 statues of horses stand before the structure, build to resemble an enormous chariot. The construction required 1,200 engineers and architects and tens of thousands of laborers. At the time of completion, the two towers stood 250 and 170 feet in the air, and sat in the shallows of the Indian ocean. A pavilion slightly further out at sea channeled the rising sun to fill the main chamber of the temple with light once each season. Today, the sea has receded 3 km, and the tallest tower has collapsed, but the temple is extremely impressive, and the surrounding gardens pleasant and well-tended.

The main attractions of the Sun Temple are the literally thousands of carvings that cover the surface of the pavilion and temple. The Lonely Planet guide recommends getting a guide so that you make sure to see the most notable sculptures. On the bus, I met a nice fellow from South India named (I think) Krishee, and we agreed to split the Rs.100 cost.

Finding a guide isn’t hard—the moment we stepped off the bus, a wispy, scruffy faced, sharply dressed man approached us with his Official Tour Guide badge in plain view. He seemed no more likely to completely rip us off than any other tour guide, so we followed him over to the temple gates.

It soon became clear, though, that we were going to have some communication difficulties.

“The people knew very much about the dijeeg,” he said as we approached the entrance.
“The what?”
“Dijeeg, dijeeg!” he replied. My companion Krishee, whose English pronunciation was substantially better than our guide’s, told me that he was saying “disease.”
“Oh, disease,” I said aloud.
“Yes yes,” the guide said. “American pronunciation is a bit different, but don’t worry, my English is very good.”

Upon entering the temple, the guide first walked us over to the statues of horses.

“Why seven? Which it is?” he asked, rhetorically, looking directly at me. (Strangely, he nearly ignored Krishee for the entire tour, seemingly talking only to me). “I prove it to you. Seven horses, seven colors of the rainbow, seven days of the week.” Not yet doubting the reliability of my guide, I asked, curiously,

“Now how do they know that?” My guide felt threatened by this no-holds-barred threat to his credibility and responded adamantly,

“I am not the kind of guide who will waste your time!” To other such questions about the justifications of certain explanations, the guide would answer, “It is true! It is not false!” or, “OK, OK, I prove it to you,” and then repeat more or less what he had said before. In the hyper-competitive market for sun-temple guides, I guess he was worried that I was questioning his authority, and might abandon him for someone else. My frequent need to ask him to repeat explanations due to his pronunciation and syntax further compounded his worry. He therefore took it upon himself to try and win me back, which proved ineffective but, as we shall see, hilarious.

At a carving of the Buddha, with droopy ears and hands that extended down to his knees, our guide explained that Buddhism had mostly declined by the construction of this temple, and was not accepted by Hindus (which I think is false, and wouldn’t explain why there is a craving of the Buddha at a Hindu temple). He then proceeded with a profound piece of political wisdom.

“People with long ears and long hands have the power to change society,” he said, seriously. “Abraham Lincoln, he is from your country,” he told me, obviously impressed with himself for knowing this. “He had long hands and long ears. Gandhiji, father of our country”—our guide brings his hands to his forehead in a respectful bow—“long hands and long ears. Hitler,” he said, before pausing thoughtfully, and finally concluding, “no, neither. Winston Churchill, long ears” he told us, as if making an important discovery. He began to lead us to the next site, but stopped for a moment to add, contemplatively, “but not long hands. Hm.” My comrade Krishee had started munching on a package of biscuits. When I tried to steal him an incredulous glance, he was frowning and nodding and making approving noises.

Realizing, I suppose, that his political insights had failed to impress, our guide still had a chance to capture my respect, for we had yet to observe the expanse of erotic carvings on the main temple. He had already pointed out statues of the different kinds of “sexy ladies” performing various styles of Orissan dance. But we hadn’t gotten to the main event.

“Look at this,” the guide told us. He was pointing to a carving of a woman standing over a man, his head firmly planted in her crotch. “This is a very weak man satisfying the woman by the oral sex.” Krishee bit into a biscuit. “But you know, I think that the oral is the very best kind, the very best kind of sexual experience, and I tell you this because I am your senior.”

At another carving, the man said, “Here, the first wife is enjoying the sex with the husband, but the second wife is entering to tell the first wife ‘go away, it is my time.’ Because women can be the most jealous for sex. It is true, the most jealous.” He said this in a tone of resignation, as if making known one of life’s unfortunate facts. We continued circling the temple.

“This man has big cock,” said the guide, pointing to a carving high up on the temple wall. Indeed, he was correct. “He is a bull, or a horse. He can satisfy two women at once. Not that you need to have big cock to satisfy woman.”

The guide also explained to Krishee and I the reason for the practice of sati, or widow burning.

“In this picture,” he said, “we see a man and woman standing on a balance. Why, which it is? I tell you,” he paused, for emphasis. “If the woman weighs less than the man, then the woman will die sooner. So, then, there is no need for the sati.” So that’s why they had to have widow burning in India; men kept marrying women that were too large for them!

For a while, I thought maybe the guide was just giving us explanations as a 13th century Orissan might. But, one other description led me to believe that this guy was either a quack or a nutjob.

“You see here, the dog is licking the groin of the woman,” he told Krishee and I. “This is because, at that time, the lick of a dog or a cat could cure any wound.” Why this woman’s vagina was supposed to be a wound, I’m not exactly sure. He continued, “And if the dog or cat was not allowed to lick the wound, then the dog or cat would die.”

Nice story, I thought, interesting cultural belief.

“But, because of climate change,” the guide said, winding up his speech, “the lick of the dog and cat no longer heals the wounds.”

I was assured later that foreigners always get the sexed-up and mythed-up version of the tour. I sort of felt sorry for Krishee, but at the end of the day, he told me we shoudl give the guide something for a tip. We each gave the guide 60 rupees, and started to be on our way.

"Um, excuse me, 80 rupees?" the guide said.
"I thought the charge was 100," I said.
"No, 100 per person," he insisted, showing me the fee card much more closely than he had before. Eventually, Krishee felt bad for the guy, and we each forked over another 20 rupees before heading back to the bus stand and going our seperate ways.

Large, glaring cultural blind spots

A short tangent of an appetizer before this post’s entrée—today, I was looking at some of the photographs I’ve taken since I arrived in India. Some of the pictures are of things more or less normal to my life here. There are a few pictures of my house, my street, the people I work with. But most of them are of unusual things: ornate temples, people in traditional dress, slums. There is one picture of a rickshaw puller, which I took shortly after I arrived. It took me a while to feel comfortable riding in a rickshaw, paying a few rupees for someone to do extraordinary effort while I sit back under the awning. Since then, I’ve taken a rickshaw a couple of times, although always at the encouragement of someone else, or when no other transportation availed itself to me. I wouldn’t have wanted to take a picture of a rickshaw after I had become used to them.

I think it makes sense to take pictures of things that are new and therefore interesting. But the result of this is that the pictures overemphasize the difference between India and home. At the same time, the photos serve as the basis for generalizations—India is a place of rickshaw drivers and temples and slums, according to my snapfish account. I have more or less ignored men wearing slacks and button-down shirts, office buildings, and construction projects, things which I see way more frequently in Kolkata. My expectations—that India is weird, and that said weirdness is what ultimately characterizes India—are what guide my camera.

I imagine that all this applies to the things I choose to write about, as well. So, you know, be skeptical.

OK, on to other things. A couple weeks ago, Shubhra and I watched the film Mr. And Mrs. Ayer, written and directed by Ms. Apnara Sen, one in a long line of super-hip artsy Bengali filmmakers. The movie is about a bus trip from the North East of India to the train station at Siliguri. A guy named Raja agrees to help Ms. Ayer and her baby as they make their way back home to Kolkata from a visit with her parents.

A bunch of communal riots break out, and it comes out that Raja is a Bengali Muslim. Mrs. Ayer, a very conservative South Indian woman, has a hard time coming to trust Raja. Romantic silliness ensues.

Watching this movie, I really wanted Raja and Mrs. Ayer to get together; they are very cute, and have a similar quiet, intentional manner. It would also be a great message about shattering cultural barriers and what have you. Furthermore, it seemed completely obvious that the viewer is supposed to want the two to get together, like the way you want the good guys’ team to win in a sports movie. Sen sets it up that way—there are too many romantic moments in the woods, and there are plenty of long shots of the two sitting a little bit too close together.

I asked Shubhra if she was similarly rooting for the two leads to elope. Her first response was, “No, that could never happen.” Inter-religious marriages aren’t nonexistent in India, but they are rare. They are even more unusual among very conservative Hindu families like the Ayers. Plus, this woman is married and has a kid, Shubhra said. She just couldn’t run off—that wouldn’t happen in India.

I told her that I mostly agreed with her, in the sense that I would have liked the movie less if Raja and Mrs. Ayer had run off together, because it would have given a very realistic an unrealistic ending. But that didn’t stop me from wanting them to run off together, from feeling the tragedy of a separation of two people whose love is written in the stars (etc etc). After some cajoling, Shubhra said she knew what I meant: but she obviously didn’t feel the same way I did.

Last night KP and I went over to Shubhra’s house for the evening. KP and Shubhra are a fascinating pair. KP is more or less the second in command at Vikramshila, and spends a fair amount of time advising Shubhra and doing work that other people haven’t finished.

KP is also Shubhra’s daughter-in-law to be. KP started working at Vikramshila about two and a half years ago, and has been dating Shubhra’s son Jishnu for almost that long. And I do mean dating in the American sense of things. KP says she didn’t become a big time liberal until returning to India after 6 years of education in the states. Her parents unsuccessfully tried to marry her off to a nice Marwarti boy, but KP thwarted them. The family, having more or less given up on KP as a respectable daughter, is slowly and begrudgingly beginning to accept they will have a Bengali for a son-in-law.

And, finally, KP and Shubhra are good friends. KP harasses Shubhra about exercising and goes with her to buy sarees and gives her massages. Shubhra gives KP a place to come hang out to get away from her extensively extended family, and KP can always say that she has to do something for work since Shubhra, the boss lady, can cover for her if need be. The two both like a lot of the same things; watching smart artsy movies, watching dumb Bollywood movies, eating sweets, reading, post-modernity. They are a blast to spend time with.

As far as I can tell, little is typical about Shubhra and KP. It’s true that women traditionally move in with their in-laws, and often become the caregivers of their mother-in-laws. But, as I understand it, that is associated with arranged marriages. In such cases, women see relatively little of their in-laws under the deal has been sealed. Plus, professional boundaries in India are pretty rigid—this is even so in Vikramshila, where Shubhra puts on her authoritarian hat when it suits her. Somehow, though, even before Jishnu and KP started going together, the two of them hit it off. They are a blast to hang out with.

Last night, the three of us all watched another of Apnara Sen’s films, the beautiful 36 Chowringee Lane. In the film, a lonely old Anglo-India school-teacher named Violet is befriended by a former student and her boyfriend. The young couple asks Violet if the young man can use her apartment so he can have a quiet place to write—what they really want is a place to make out. An agreement is made that the young man will write while Violet is teaching. Over time, the couple and Violet become friends, and Violet is lifted a bit from her depressing routine.

The film deals with the general alienation of the Anglo-Indian population in Kolkata, and further with the kinds of responsibilities and duties imposed on women. It is also about betrayal and manipulation; the young couple remains friends with Violet only as long as she has something to give them.

From my perspective, though, Violet must have been partner to the manipulation. Evidence in my favor: each time Violet returns home in the evening, both the young man and young woman are there. Also, after the first few visits, the young man stops bothering to bring his typewriter. Finally (and this is my strongest argument) no one can be that stupid. Two young people, very touchy, who live in a society of conservative sexual norms, ask to borrow your apartment while you’re away; what do you think they’re going to do?

KP and Shubhra completely rejected this interpretation.

“Such a thing cannot even be imagined!” Shubhra told me.
“The young couple imagined it,” I retorted.
“But there is a generational gap as well,” Shubhra insisted. “And Violet never would have agreed if they had asked her the truth—so how could she know?” I said I thought that you could know something on one level, but more or less ignore it if it didn’t confront you directly. In this way it’s a willful ignorance. KP disagreed.
“It’s a cultural blind spot. It’s not conscious.”

It’s difficult for me to believe that Violet would never have suspected that the lovebirds were using her apartment to take care of business, as it were. But I suppose that’s my own blind spot.

When I watch movies and read books, I like to think about the questions, “what do I want to happen in this story?” and, “what does the author want me to want to happen in this story?” Does a character always appear in scenes with low light, with and underscore of sinister music? You’re probably not supposed to like that guy.

I think that this thought process has validity, at least sometimes. But it relies upon the assumption that the narrative is transparent: which is to say, the viewer or reader can know the agenda of the artist. But that’s clearly not true, especially when dealing with a piece of art from a different culture. Not only did Shubhra and KP have different responses to the films than I did, we disagreed about the responses we were supposed to have. It seemed to me that the audience was supposed to be rooting for Raja and Mrs. Ayer; Shubhra didn’t see it that way at all.

I know I’m not making any big discovery here, but it was wild to watch the same movies with people who I regard as friends, and people who I feel like I communicate with on a personal level, and to come away with radically different interpretations.

To conclude, if you’re looking for a good movie to rent off Netflicks, see if you can get 36 Chowringee Lane. Some of the scenes feel a little contrived to my Western tastes, but the acting is spectacular, and it gives you a great sense of Calcutta. It’s mostly in English, and the Bangla scenes have subtitles.

Nerds Only: A report on Vikramshila's school in Bigha, West Bengal

My work at Vikramshila has mostly consisted of documenting a variety of Vikramshila programs. All of my reports have been positive, and I was encouraged to drift into NGO-ese from time to time: but, nevertheless, the schools and camps I visited were founded on a fantastic educational philosophy that I think can serve as a model for development in areas beyond education. The following is a severely abridged (but still long) version of the report I wrote about the Vikramshila school in Bigha.

A little background information is in order; Bigha is a village of about 5,000 in West Bengal, known as the rice bowl of India. The Bigha school is owned by members of the community, and managed in partnership with Vikramshila. Vikramshila provides resources, technical support, pays the meager teacher salaries, and works as a facilitator.

The final goal of the school is to demonstrate that quality eudcation is possible, and that it can have a dramatic impact on a community. Government services in much of rural India are pretty poor; for example, the local government school has 600 kids and 2 teachers, one of whom rarely shows up. But the success of the Bigha School has created a public pressure to activate government services. The idea is not to become a parllel system, but to be an example of who education might look if the government were doing it right.

Any reader who gets all the way through this thing gets two gold stars.

Foundational Principles
Two interconnceted principles lay at the heart of the Bigha school project, what I will refer to as relevance and participation.

Relevance is closely connected to the constructivist school of educational philosophy that begins with John Dewey. Constructivists hold that the goal of education should not be to provide students with a particular set of skills, or with knowledge of a certain canon of writers and ideas. Instead, students should pursue their development as critical thinkers, acquiring skills and conceptual tools that let them make sense of the world around them. This, of course, precludes any universal, standardized curriculum, since each student will interact with a different part of the world, and will do so in unique ways. In order to provide a constructivist education—an education that prepares students for life—a curriculum must be tailored to the student and his or her experience; in short, it must be relevant to them on a personal level.

In the Indian educational system, too frequently, the curriculum has little or nothing to do with life in a rural village. As a result, many children drop out before completing primary school. Of those who do successfully complete their education, almost all abandon the countryside for urban centres, a testament to the kind of life for which the Indian educational system prepares its pupils.

Creating a relevant curriculum means many different things, but in all instances the child’s cultural background as well as their prior knowledge base must be taken as a starting point for learning. Consider a child learning to read. Upon entering school, each student brings along a large body of linguistic knowledge. Traditional reading pedagogies treat written letters and words as abstract entities, isolated from their relationship to spoken language. This approach dismisses the valuable background knowledge that students bring to the classroom.

A reading curriculum looks significantly different if that background knowledge is treated as a springboard for further language acquisition. Here, teachers focus on maintaining the connection between written and spoken language—that letters are phonetic symbols which represent words when they are combined. These reading techniques have proven to be effective, in part because the curriculum involves students as active participants.

The emphasis on curricular relevance is even more important when students begin reading complete sentences and passages of text. Effective readers are constantly performing the tasks of metacognition—the process of monitoring one’s own comprehension. This process requires readers to actively make meaning from the text, rather than passively receiving it. Teachers can model these skills by asking questions and leading activities which cause children to reflect on what they have read.

Monitoring one’s own comprehension simply described as asking the question, “does this make sense to me?” Whether or not a lesson or text “makes sense” to a student will of course depend on his or her prior knowledge and experience. We can see that active learning, performing metacognition, and linking material in the classroom to prior experience are parallel and mutually reinforcing processes. And they all follow from the attempt to make learning relevant to the lives of students.

Relevance can also mean integration of issues from the students’ homes and communities into class work. Medical and agricultural technologies commonly used in rural India are often poorly understood by recipients as well as practitioners. An understanding of scientific principles is fundamental for achieving control over one’s existence, and to avoid relying solely on the advice of experts. In Bigha, the school’s science curriculum is perhaps the most dramatic way that life and learning have been linked, and that the community is gaining control of scientific processes and procedures that affect their lives.

Participation is simply the involvement of all stakeholders in the management of the school. Parent and community members are those who stand to benefit the most from an effective and dynamic school; and yet, in most cases, they are often the people with the least say in how the school operates. Effective community participation ensures that teachers and administrators are held accountable for the education they provide. And since parents have such a strong interest in the success of the school, they are likely to spend a lot of time and energy addressing concerns and solving problems. Furthermore, the process of organizing, of making community decisions, of thinking critically and creatively about how to improve life in the village gives people experience as dynamic community members, and provides a site where other social agreements can form.

Participation and relevance reinforce one another. Participation is necessary to ensure that the curriculum is truly relevant—only members of the community know enough about their daily lives to determine what material the school ought to cover.

In turn, relevance is necessary to ensure participation. Students confronted with a curriculum totally detached from their daily lives are likely to drop out, and parents are likely to let them. If, on the other hand, a community sees the school as a resource benefiting children and the community as a whole, they will be willing to work to preserve and enhance that resource.

Taken together, curricular relevance and community participation can result in the elimination of the barrier between school and community. If the curriculum is relevant, then what is learned in school will constantly flow out into the community; if there is community participation, issues pertinent to the lives of students will make their way into the school. When this loop is established, a school has become a centre for community dialogue about issues important to the community, and a site where individuals can arrive at solutions to problems. The kind of school that I am describing can become a site where communities can crystallize.

Schools are particularly apt to become community centres. If a school is truly rooted in the fabric of a community, then the process of questioning and making sense of the world around us expands beyond the classroom to the community at large. As Krishna Kumar has pointed out, metacognition as a tool for successful reading is fundamentally the same as an active and critical examination of societal structures and practices. Both rely on individuals constantly asking the question, “does this make sense to me?” And when children are engaging critically with issues that are relevant to their daily live, the divide between critical thinking in life and in learning disappears. When parents and community members are involved in this process, the school has become a site for self-reflection and social change.

The next section will examine how the principles of relevance and participation are implemented in the Bigha school: and how feedback loops between school and community have been created as a result, breaking down traditional barriers between life and learning.

Agriculture
Local history is an important element of the relevant curriculum of the Bigha school. In one project, students researched the agricultural practices of Bigha and how those practices have changed over the years. While cataloging the varieties of rice planted in the village, students made a small but intriguing discovery. 30 years ago, all of the rice varieties had names in Bengali. Today, each variety is denoted by a code: IR followed by some two-digit number. Students began asking why the names of rice varieties had changed. When farmers realized they didn’t know the answer, they joined the exploration.

Teachers at the school managed to figure out that the old varieties of rice were very old, and had been replaced in the ‘70s by the high-yield varieties (or HYVs) of the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution was hailed as a triumph of modern technology—yield per acre increased dramatically, and it is estimated that the world would not currently be able to feed its population without this advance. However, the HYVs brought with them a host of other changes to agricultural practice. HYVs are only more successful than traditional strands if chemical fertilizers and pesticides are used. This use of chemical fertilizer also allowed farmers to forego crop rotation, since soil nutrients could be presumably replenished with the fertilizers. Furthermore, the seeds are much more difficult to store than traditional varieties, which mean farmers must shell out money for seed every year to MNCs.

Farmers began thinking about why the switch from traditional to HYVs occurred. They also noticed, thanks to new record keeping techniques introduced with the help of the school that average profit had been falling steadily. Although yield was indeed higher than during pre-Green Revolution years, the compromise was a steady decline in soil quality. This decline translates to increased costs for farmers, who must use more fertilizer every year. While crop rotation could help preserve soil quality, under Green Revolution techniques, crop rotation is unfeasible; when a farmer must spend so much money on fertilizer, he needs to farm as much land as possible to make up for the additional costs.

Farmers in the village expressed interest in finding new ways to farm. Vikramshila contacted an NGO specializing in agricultural issues called The Service Centre to provide technical support ant information. The school started a model garden to demonstrate crop rotation techniques, which include growing non-rice crops like mustard in off years to put nitrogen and other nutrients back into the soil. Perhaps for the first time, farmers in Bigha had options in front of them, and had access to information to help them choose the best method for their circumstance. Provided with this information about the different types of rice varieties and agricultural techniques, all the farmers in Bigha have decided to stop using fertilizers, and have introduced organic fertilizers and crop rotation. A full 80% have stopped using pesticides.

When I asked the men at a farmers meeting whether organic or chemical farming were easier, one man replied that chemical fertilizer was easier, and paid better. But, he said, after years of watching his profits fall, he realized that he couldn’t risk completely destroying the soil for short-term gains. Organic farming, which is more labor intensive and less profitable, is sustainable in the long term.

Currently, the farmers have yet to abandon the HYVs, but Vikramshila and the Service Centre have begun the conversation about switching back to traditional varieties of rice, which respond better to organic farming techniques.

The story of the rice varieties in Bigha is a prime example of the loops between life and learning that occur when a school’s curriculum is relevant to daily life and involves participation from many members of the community. A school project about local history (and thus directly relevant to the students’ lives) initiated a conversation with the village’s farmers. They, in turn, became intrigued by the topic. The students and farmers posed a question (“why do all the varieties of rice now have numbers for names?”) which became the centrepiece of a new phase of the curriculum, which ultimately led to a shift in farming techniques.

Gender
One objective of Vikramshila has been to encourage the participation of women in the school and the community at large. Without official data, I can only speculate about the magnitude of the school’s gender effect; however, organizers and community members alike report that the enrollment of girls in the school has led to an increase in the average age of marriage and, as a result, the average age of a mother when she has her first child. Previously, even if a child were to complete primary school, there was no further educational option. The Eco Club and adolescent girls group provide an opportunity for girls to continue learning, thus delaying the time when a girl’s family decides that it is time for her to be married off. Furthermore, the adolescent girl’s group addresses basic issues of reproductive health. According to organizers, women in the village have repeated requested such information because they feel that they frequently do not have ultimate control over the number of children they have.

When I asked a group of teenage girls in Big, what they enjoyed about being members of the Village School’s Eco Group, one girl responded that she liked sharing knowledge about health and the environment with family and neighbors, and gave her esteem in the eyes of her community members. This, she said, is a “tremendous feeling.” Having the power to engage in inquiry about her world provides both self-satisfaction and respect from members of the community. Through the club, they have attended various trainings in Kolkata on various topics—from disposal and use of human waste products to the production of toothpaste and detergent from local plants. The Eco Club members have also recently undertaken a reforestation project.

This kind of education-—where students are partners in the process of learning, where the curriculum is tailored to and based in the lives of the students, and where the goal of education is overall empowerment—-is what Paulo Friere in The Pedagogy of the Oppressed calls liberating: and, therefore, humanizing. The process of learning itself is beneficial, because it conveys to individuals their capacity to engage the world through inquiry.

However, while the school has benefited the women of Bigha to some extent, organizers lament that women’s direct participation in the school has been essentially zero. None of the school’s teachers are women, nor are any of the participants in the farmers meetings or parents meetings. The community’s ownership of the school that I have been describing has, in truth, been mostly male ownership. While Vikramshila organizers hope that the school continues to open opportunities for village’s women, the community’s male leaders have thus far not recognized women’s empowerment as a goal.

Conclusion
One issue that I have not addressed in this assessment of the Bigha school is Vikramshila’s role. While many efforts have been made to ensure community ownership and participation, the fact remains that an NGO came into the village from outside, with outside money, and began the process of opening the school. On the one hand, we can view the school as a neutral space where learning and community organizing can occur. On the other hand, organizers at Vikramshila certainly have values and goals for the school that are not always matched by the values and goals of residents of Bigha. Is the community development in Bigha change from within, or change from with out?

We must conclude, I believe, that both processes are occurring simultaneously, and are in fact always in tension with one another. It is important to realize that Bigha is not homogenous—different individuals and groups in the community have different aims. It would be a mistake to ask whether Vikramshila was acting with or against the interests of the typical resident of Bigha, since such a person does not exist. It would be misguided to let Vikramshila speak as the voice of Bigha; but so too would it be inaccurate, for example, to listen only to the concerns of Bigha’s men, who dominate not only the management of the Bigha school but local politics as well. At a meeting with the girls of the Eco Club, I asked how long the girls wanted to continue their participating. One girl answered, “I want to continue until I die!”

“But girls stop coming after they are married, don’t they?” I asked. One of the girls, who had recently been married, said that she came to the group whenever she stayed at her mother’s house, but that her in-laws, with whom she lives, do not permit her to attend. She seemed to have no intention to thwart the demands of her husband’s family, but she had no desire to comply with societal norms when they weren’t enforced, either.

It seems to me that the restrictions that this young woman’s in-laws put upon her are unequivocally oppressive; and yet, I realize that she would not describe her social status in those terms. But the Bigha school has provided her a place in which she has had the ability to pursue her own self-actualization; the eco group has provided her with knowledge and skills which have generated self-confidence and respect among her community members.

So: does this model of education and social change involve the imposition of foreign feminist values onto a place where they have no meaning? Any intervention in a community by an NGO presumably rests upon a set of values and beliefs about what is good, and what constitutes progress. The Bigha school has been successful because Vikramshila and community members have found areas of agreement, and worked on those. It turns out that these areas are far more common than issues of disagreement—if the converse had been true, I suppose that no school would have formed in the first place. Beginning with the principles of curricular relevance and community participation ensures that development occurs with constant reference to the traditions and values of the people who live in Bigha. Having control over one’s life in this way, having the space to ask the question, “does this make sense to me?” is insulation against imposing a narrow set of structures and processes on villagers in the name of progress.

In which Sam imagines that his blog is part of some widespread movement against oppression and injustice

I don't know how many of you have heard the news (I was out of town this week, so I actually learned from my parents) but the government ordered Indian ISPs to block a handful of websites on Tuesday, giving no explanation. One result of this was that the ISPs blocked all of www.blogger.com, which hosts millions of blogs including this one. Allegedly, most blogs should be up and running today.

On Wednesday, sitting in a computer cafe in Puri, I tried to look up this blog to read comments on the last post, which Rachel has since e-mailed me, in characteristically considerate fashion. When the site didn't load, I flattered myself for a few minutes that the Indian government had blocked my blog in particular, perhaps along all other blogs dealing with extremely controversial topics like peace and not killing people. But, when I tried to load a random blog on baseball, and it was also blocked, I had to come to the conclusion that, in fact, the whole site was acting funny. At the same time, I was chatting with my mom online, who told me that she could visit my blog just fine.

The Indian government is calling the whole thing a big mistake. The International Herald Tribune reports that:

"In an e-mail sent early Thursday, an official at the Consulate General of India in New York said that the order to block a handful of Web sites, including the popular blogspot.com, which hosts thousands of personal Web logs, had been prompted by the discovery of a Web site that contained 'two impertinent pages' rife with material containing 'extremely derogatory references to Islam.'"

I have no idea if this is true or not, but it seems awfully convenient. A week ago, the Indian government was claiming that the internet was used to help coordinate and plan the series of bomb attacks, currently being attributed to Islamic-fundamentalists. Now, they are saying that websites were censored as a bid to prevent people from offending Muslims. Meanwhile, stories about the Indian police raiding predominantly Muslim slums are trickling over from Mumbai, despite little coverage in the mainstream press. Concern for Muslim sensibilities doesn’t seem too high up on the government's priority list. Then again, they may just be trying to avoid big communal riots.

In any case, the nice thing for the government about this "technological mistake" is that now we'll never know which sites prompted the censorship.

Having faced extreme anger over the decision to block sites, the government has taken the courageous step of blaming the whole thing on the ISPs, and promising to take action. As if widespread censorship were a real infringement of free speech, whereas targeted, politically motivated censorship is perfectly acceptable.

India doesn't have a super track record on free speech. In a widely publicized instance, in 2004, the BJP-led NDP coalition of Hindu fundamentalist parties instructed the Central Board of Film Certification to exclude all films from the festival that were critical of the government on the environment, politics, globalization, and sexual topics. In a completely brilliant protest, filmmakers bolted the festival and started their own, VIKALP, or Films for Freedom. Initially, the only criterion for admittance was a rejection letter from MIFF. Since then, VIKALP has grown into India's premier art-film festival

This government, the UPA, led by the indefatigable Congress Party that has been in power since Independence except for two brief interruptions, has been loose with the red stamp as well. Usually, the UPA's reasons are paternalistic--they need to protect the delicate minds of the typical India. Earlier this summer, there was a big debacle about whether or not the government would prevent The Da Vinci Code from showing in India. Indian Christians were storming bookstores and demanding that owners stop selling the books. The de-facto head of the government, Sonia Gandhi, even sat in on the panel to watch the movie. The committee decided to allow The Da Vinci Code to be seen in India, on the condition that the film include a notice assuring viewers that the story is fiction.

You get the feeling that these guys [the government] don't get it. Dr. Jaipal Reddy, the head of the Department of Infringing on People's Rights, or whatever it's called, loves to say that if the media would just self-regulate, they could save him the trouble of censoring stuff. Does he not get that "self-regulation" is what gives America its tunnel-vision media? Does he not know that the purpose of free speech is to protect the rights of minorities, not the mainstream? And, most of all, does he not see that with the rise of blogging and wikimedia, we enter an era where the concept of self-regulation becomes totally defunct?

On the one hand, I can sympathize with wanting to avoid sparking communal violence that is already all too common. But allowing a government to censor even a small portion of the internet is proceeding down a slippery slope.

Here's hoping India doesn't spiral into a military dictatorship.

"If there are going to be songs about World War III, we need to write them beforehand"

Jayshree, the administrative assistant at Vikramshila, called me over to her computer yesterday to read an e-mail she had received from a friend. It was a chain e-mail, declaring that the terrorists couldn’t interrupt Mumbai’s way of life—everyone went to work the next morning, taking the same train lines that had been bombed the day before. It was nice, although not particularly moving. As I got up from her computer to go back to what I had been doing, she told me that she had lost two relatives in the attacks. Neither was too close to her, it sounds like—her brother-in-law’s uncle was killed, as was a second cousin. But these are people she knows, and people who are very close to people who are close to her. Jayshree and I aren’t too close; we always talk over lunch, and chat a bit during the day, but this was the closest we’ve come to a heart-to-heart. She told me with a smile on her face, the kind you wear when you’d prefer to hold an idea out at arm’s length rather than have it float uninhibited in your mind.

All in all, the world has had a pretty bad couple of weeks. Hizbollah and Israel are doing their best to start World War III, while India has suffered three terrorist attacks from two different groups. On 7/11, bombs went off in Kashmir and Mumbai, allegedly the work of Pakistani-supported extremist Islamic groups. And just yesterday, 1,000 heavily armed Maoist Naxalite rebels killed 26 people in a government “safe zone,” and took 200 more captive.

I am perfectly safe; West Bengal, and Kolkata in particular, have very large Muslim populations, and yet there is a notable absence of communal violence. I’ve heard a couple of people talking about how West Bengal is a powder keg, but I’ve seen little evidence to support that. And the Maoist rebels tend to be situated in central and northern India.

I think one big mistake made frequently in conversations on the war on terror is the presumption that ‘terrorists’ are crazy and irrational, and that they are motivated by hatred or pride or some other immaterial entity. They (the proverbial ‘they,’ the negative image of ‘us’) want to destroy our way of life; they hate our freedom. David Cross, in one of his ultra-liberal stand-up comedy routines, remakes on this rhetoric (and I’m paraphrasing here):

“Actually, I don’t think they are attacking us because they hate our freedom. I think it’s because they’re mad about the United States’ support for the Israeli occupation of Palestine, and about the presence on American troops in Saudi Arabia that is condoned only by an oppressive monarch. Why do I think this? BECAUSE IT’S WHAT THEY SAID.”

Funny stuff, but I think his point is crucial. Individuals go on insane murderous rampages, like Norman Bates, the mild-mannered hotel owner in Psycho. And whole peoples can be spurred to violence and wreck unbelievable carnage, like the massacres in Rawanda, although even those tragedies have roots in their histories of colonization and oppression.

But to suggest that whole nations and societies can go crazy for long periods of time —that is, act without any reason or purpose—is either intellectual laziness or intentional manipulation. Often, I believe, it’s a combination of the two. It’s important to take people seriously when they proclaim their grievances. That doesn’t mean you’re required to yield to their demands, but it does mean you have to engage them as human beings.

Yesterday, I talked with Debarati, another one of the Vikramshila women, about her take on the recent bombings. I realize that it’s somewhat unfair to take people too literally the week after their country has been attacked. Debarati is a smart person, and she was willing to temper and qualify her more extreme statements when I pushed her—but her gut reactions were telling about the way people think in the aftermath of violence.

There are a lot of issues surrounding the bombings in Mumbai, including the degree of the Pakistani government’s complicity or participation in the attacks. But part of the issues comes from India’s possession of the state of Kashmir. Kashmir has been a disputed territory since Indian independence in 1947. When it was decided to partition the subcontinent, the guiding rule was for territories with Hindu majorities to form India, while the territories with Muslim majorities would become Pakistan. Kashmir was an exception. Indian-administered Kashmir is 70% Muslim, but at the time of partition, the local monarch was a Hindu, and he decided his kingdom should be part of India.

Pakistan claims, completely reasonably, that monarchs have no authority, and that the decision for Kashmir to remain in India was illegal. If the rule had been followed, all of Kashmir would belong to Pakistan. Of course, it’s hard to side to strongly with a country under a military dictatorship, which doesn’t really get points where democracy and human rights are concerned. In any case, nobody has ever let Kashmir vote to determine its fate, although it is widely agreed that an election would result in an independent statehood, unaligned with either of its huge neighbors.

In the meantime, Kashmiris have suffered terribly at the hands of the Indian and Pakistani militaries, and have seen the most consistent stream of terrorist attacks. Kashmiris, it seems to me, have a completely understandable and legitimate political grievance. And while I don’t want to condone the slaughter of innocent civilians, when a people are denied an official military by which to defend themselves, it’s not surprising that they turn to covert means. Pakistan sees in this conflict a way to undermine India’s power, and has probably provided support as a result.

It surprised me when Debarati asked, “But do you really think that they would stop attacking India if they had Kashmir?” I of course don’t know the answer to this question. But the idea that the Kashmiris would keep attacking India indefinitely, regardless of outcome, is worse than ludicrous—it is the perspective of a nation that refuses to take seriously the complaints of an oppressed people.

And to sustain this view, Debarati and other Hindus have to maintain something like the belief that, as Debarati told me, “All Muslims hate Hindus.” She told me this calmly, stating a somewhat regrettable but unalterable fact of nature. Their violent tendencies stem from this hatred.

It’s a convenient position for the Indian government to take, because it means you never have to consider a compromise, or consider that people have been wronged and deserve remittance. It’s the same way that the Israeli government views the Palestinians. I even think it’s the way the US defines terrorists—those people who act irrationally, for no real purpose, and who therefore don’t need to be treated like human beings.

Of course, after your country has been hit by a dizzying series of attacks, when Jayshree is thinking about her relatives who were in one of the train compartments where a bomb went off, such a reaction is understandable. When you are considering the death of a loved one, it is impossible to imagine that the person responsible could justify their actions. “A justification for this?” the people of Mumbai are asking. “Justify this and you destroy the moral fabric of our lives.”

But I think we have to listen, and we have to be sympathetic, and we have to take people seriously, or the moral fabric we think we’re defending becomes the basis for a perpetual cycle of revenge.

There is a 100% Stupid Foreigner Tax on All Items

On a clear, temperate night just before the monsoon started, I wandered up to the terrace restaurant of the Hotel Lindsay, which is said to be the best place in town for an evening beer. I had two. And when I say two, I mean two Premium Kingfishers. These are some serious beers. I would have watched the sun set over the city, but the designers of the Hotel Lindsay built the terrace restaurant facing East, away from the sunset as well as the river Hoogly. Nonetheless, I had a splendid evening with my book, watching the shadows grow longer over the colorful expanse of India’s second largest city.

Feeling tipsy from the combination of the beer and the heat, but enjoying myself quite a bit, I walked over to New Market, a huge indoor complex in Chowringee, Kolkata’s downtown. As I entered the market, I was swamped by porters, men who will follow you around, lead you to the shops that pay them commission, insist on carrying your things, and then demand a tip. I had two purchases in mind; first, some sort of warm clothing item, which I could wear on my trip up to Sikkim and Darjeeling. Second, some silk scarves, which might serve as good presents to give to people back home.

(And listen, don’t think that you are one of those people who will be getting a scarf, because you’re probably not. I debated for two weeks as to whether or not to tell this story because it involves announcing that I bought certain people presents, and thereby potentially making other people mad at me. So just assume that you’re not on the list so you don’t get disappointed later.)

I told a porter that I wanted to buy a coat.

“Leather jacket?” he asked, at which point 5 other guys swarmed towards me, all shouting, “Leather jacket? You want buy leather jacket?” After getting everything sorted out, I followed one fellow, a hunched elderly man, through the stinking meat market to a clothing shop in the innards of New Market. Within a few seconds, the owner produced a jacket. I held it up to my chest; it looked the right size. The owner said it was usually Rs. 2500, but he would give it to me for Rs. 1850. (The exchange rate is about Rs 45=US$1).

Now, I had never bargained before; and, feeling a little drunk and impulsive, I leaped on this exciting opportunity.

“I’ll give you a thousand for it.” The owner frowned, and, scribbling on the back on an envelope, suggested 1500. I stuck to my mark; he finally came down to 1,200, at which point I agreed. He stuck out his large hand, we shook, I paid, and I was off, with my jacket in the porter’s basket.

I was eccstatic. From Rs. 1850, I had wiggled him down to 1200, which is just about $20! Not too bad! The coat was warm and waterproof, with a nice hood. Feeling successful, I marched on.

Next, I was led to a scarf shop, where two enthusiastic people showed me more scarves than I really cared about. I sat there, comfortably, nodding with appreciative attentive, but making no promises. I was not going to be duped by their wily ways, no sir!

Finally, I had selected 4 scarves. I totaled up the price on the stickers, which came to Rs. 7200, which is about $170. Now, I had no idea how much a silk scarf should cost. Think about it—a silk scarf could cost anything in the US. But I felt that Rs. 4500 for the four (about $100) would be reasonable. From Rs. 7200, I halved the price, and said.

“How about Rs. 3600?” The bargaining began. It was a battle of the wits, each of us trying to guess at the other’s reserve price, seeing how far we could push. Finally, we were stuck. I had said Rs 4500; the clerk wasn’t budging past Rs 6500. I offered Rs 5000. He declined, and I began to walk about.

“Ok, ok” he called me back. “That’s fine.” I paid with my credit card, and left.

I realized, of course, than an Indian would probably have paid less; but I hadn’t done too badly, had I? Four scarves, of very good quality, for $110. A lot of money, sure; but then, they were nice presents for nice people. Done and done.

The trouble began when I got home. After I had put my bags of merchandise on the floor and laid down, exhausted, on my bed, it occurred to me that I had never tried the jacket on. Nervous, I pulled the coat out of the bag, and slid my arms through the sleeves. They only came down to my forearms. Oddly, the torso of the jacket fit just fine—it was only the sleeves that didn’t fit. I had purchased a reject jacket, I realized. Oh well—it hadn’t been too expensive, I reasoned. A silly mistake, partially inspired by alcohol. What’s done is done.

When I told KanuPriya about the price I paid for the scarves the next day in the office, her jaw literally dropped.

“For four scarves,” she said, “there’s no way you should have paid a rupee more than 2000.” She ran around, telling everyone who came in what I had paid, and their reactions were equally as astonished. In some people, the story inspired a kind of patriotic anger.

“How could they treat a foreigner like that,” someone would exclaim, “making him think that all Indians are cheats!” Such anger was supposed to make me feel better, I suppose, but ended up humiliating me even more.

KanuPriya resolved to help me obtain some justice. Upon seeing what I had bought, she revised her earlier estimate, and declared that Rs. 2500 would have been a decent price (“though still more than I would have paid,” she assured me).

“Did you get a receipt?” she asked. I realized that I hadn’t. “You always have to ask for a receipt!” she exclaimed, exasperated. When it came out a few minutes later that I had paid with my credit card, she slapped her palm to her forehead.

“Did you sign the slip?” she asked. I said yes. “And you didn’t get a receipt? Don’t ever pay with credit card in India,” she cautioned me, “because you never know what they’ll do with the number.”

I was severely skeptical that anything could be done on my behalf; I had no receipt, and had agreed freely to the amount proposed. But KanuPriya wasn’t so easily dissuaded. She, you see, is a Marwarti, a particular ethnicity of Indians who are stereotypically shopkeepers, are notoriously stingy, and love to bargain.

“It’s kind of like the Jews in the US,” KP told me. “Not to be anti-Semitic or anything.”
“No,” I said. “Of course not.”

KP’s plan was as follows; I would lead her back through the labyrinthine New Market to the place where I had bought the scarves. She would approach the owner, and ask how much a scarf similar to the ones I purchased might cost. Upon hearing the real, Indian price, she would beckon me over, exposing the cheating shopkeeper to the light of truth and justice. She would then convince him to give me more merchandise for free.

“It’s very inauspicious to gave back money, but he’ll give you more stuff,” she told me confidently in the cab.

“KP,” I said, “there’s no way this will work. He has no reason to give me anything. I was cheated on my own free will.”

“Just wait,” she said.

We found the shop, and KP left me safely out of sight. To my great embarrassment, several of the porters recognized me as that gullible white kid, and tried to whisk me to their favorite shops, where I might also spend an exorbitant sum of money. But KP soon beckoned me over, and began shouting forcefully at the three men.

At first, the men denied that I had ever purchased anything from their store. This, KP and I had realized, would be our biggest problem, since without a receipt, we couldn’t prove that I hadn’t bought the scarves from one of the dozen other such shops in New Market. But the story of the shopkeepers quickly became convoluted.

“Well, anyway, he signed the credit card slip, so he agreed to the price,” one of the men said. (KP translated for me later).

“Oh, so he did buy from you?” KP charged. I’m sure that explosive glee was hidden behind her severe expression, but she did a fantastic job hiding it.

KP had exactly two things going for her; one, she is extremely persuasive. Two, as long as she was standing there, the shop was going to do no business, being nothing more than a wall of scarves and a counter. She and the two men began a tremendous duel. It was all in rapid Bengali, impossible for me to understand; but the body language itself was superb. KP took the scarves I had bought and plopped them on the counter, pointing to them and to the men with her narrow fingers in that precise and floppy way I’ve come to notice is common amongst Indian women. I couldn’t help but grin a bit. She gave me the glance of death and said, softly, “Don’t smile, you’ll ruin it.”

Victory was inevitable. The men started out insistent and calm. This serenity soon gave way to nervous laughter, which then gave way to overt begging. A great game was played with the purchased scarves—KP would take them out of the bag and throw them on the counter. The men, desperate, would put them back in and push them away, only to have them thrown back in their faces.

When KP sat down at the stool at the counter, I knew it was finished. She assumed a position of perturbed relaxation, and pointed to two scarves much like the most expensive ones I had bought. At this point, the guys looked sheepish. One was idly fuddling with a piece of plastic on the counter. Reluctantly, the men conceded, one more expensive scarf to my stash. KP pointed to another, which caused one of the clerks to clasp his hands together, pleading for KP to be reasonable. She looked around the market, disaffectedly, blurting out the occasional warning. Finally, one more silk scarf was placed carefully inside my sack. KP looked satisfied. I picked up the goods, and we marched off. As we walked away, KP told me,

“Oh, I should have been able to get to two more scarves and some money.” I declared I would buy her lunch, and asked,

“Was that extremely fun?” She flashed a huge, sheepish grin, and then, pointing at some fancy skirts hanging in another shop, she said,

“Oooh, look at these!” We spent the next hour browsing through all her favorite stores.

The total reasonable price of all the merchandise I now had, KP told me, was somewhere around Rs. 4000, leaving me cheated out of $25 instead of $50. Plus I now have presents for two more people. I still feel embarrassed about getting cheated—but, on the other hand, if I had known what I was doing, I never would have gotten to see such an incredible performance. And that $25 was well worth the price of admission.

Discipline is Must. Globalisation is Must. Our India is Great.

(the title is a notice painted on a gate I pass on the way to work.)

I spent the last week in the Himalayan foothills of West Bengal, and in Sikkim, India’s second smallest state. The train arrived in New Jaipulguri, part of an unpleasant urban sprawl without any of Kolkata’s rough-edged charisma or rural India’s serenity. I took a jeep up to Darjeeling, the alleged Queen of the Hills (alleged because I saw not a single snow-capped Himalaya, thanks to the fog.) After a couple days, I left for Sikkim, descending the mountain down a harrowing series of switchbacks that would have worried me had I not become acclimated to Kolkata’s manic road etiquette. I caught another jeep in Jorethang, and proceeded up another hill to Pelling, where I stayed for the night.

The dominant industry in Sikkim, as far as I can tell, is rock busting. The Carriers, all male, haulers huge baskets full of stones on their backs up and down steep embankments to the Busters. The Busters, both men and women sit on piles of fist-size rocks, upon a thin mat, and whack the stones into gravel with small sledge hammers. They are often shielded from the sun by an umbrella, lodged into the pile of rocks, but the monsoon clouds actually made the temperature quite bearable. The resulting gravel is then accumulated by the Carriers, who haul these enormously heavy baskets somewhere else, where I suppose it is used for road construction.

******

Yesterday, back in Kolkata, I putted around town for while, marveling at the blocks of book stalls on College St, before finally heading over to Forum Mall to get something to eat at the food court. The Lonely Planet had described the Mall as “futuristic,” and I suppose that’s an apt if pessimistic description. Forum is a 6 story mall, medium sized by American standards. It is extremely clean and well lit, with what have to be India’s cleanest public restrooms. I browsed Music World, with it’s skimpy selection of DVD’s and tunes from Hindi movies, and had pretty good dosa at the food court. It’s like a mall anywhere—fat teenagers will cut in front of you in line, babies scream over the shoulders of their befuddled parents, and huge glossy posters hang from every available surface. In keeping with the tradition of evil genius in mall architecture, Forum has only “Up” escalators; to go down, you have to wait in long lines for the lift, or take the stairs. Once you’re in, it’s easier to stay than it is to leave.

The trappings of American shopping culture don’t stop there. Passing a toy store, I noticed the “Roboraptor!” toy in the window (“A fusion of technology and personality”) and the vast shelf of Barbie dolls, prominently displayed. I noticed that all the Barbie dolls were light skinned and blonde. I tried to explain to the woman behind the counter that I was not at all interested in buying anything, but that I wanted to know if they had any Indian Barbies. The clerk climbed atop a step ladder and began pulling down five or six dolls with black hair and “traditional” Indian clothing, hidden neatly behind the rows of the white dolls. I thanked her and left.

I shouldn’t hold myself up as too high and mighty here—I spent a good hour in the mall, eating lunch, snacking on an ice cream cone, enjoying the air conditioning. As much as I wondered at the affluence inside Forum compared with the squalor outside of it, I was certainly no different from the other patrons, who also, I’m sure, came to cool off and relax on this rainy, humid weekend.

*******

I had decided to do the first two days of the Monastic Trek, a four day walk through West Sikkim that takes you to all kinds of idyllic locations—mountain lakes and waterfalls and rhododendron gardens. For the first day, the Lonely Planet says, “Take the obvious trail from Pelling straight down to the river. Turn onto the main road, go through Rimbi, and go left at the fork.” Then, it says, you’ll end up at Khechepalri Lake (pronounced something like “catch a perry”).

There is nothing at all obvious about the “obvious trail,” and I spent the whole morning and much of the afternoon wandering on tiny footpaths down to the river. These trails aren’t just for hikers though—in many cases they are the only means of getting to the houses of farmers, who grow rice and jute in terraces that cling to the sides of the mountains. One moment I’d be passing through a scenic patch of giant bell-shaped orchids: and the next, I’d emerge into the common area between a house and a chicken shack, the only two structures in a small encampment. Often, the residents of these thatch and mud buildings would be a mile or more from the next such dwelling. A few times, a rock carrier would pass me, grunting his way up the mountain with his several-hundred pound load.

The monkeys were swinging merrily overhead, the brooks were babbling brightly thanks to the monsoon—had it not been for feeling tremendously lost, and for frequently tumbling down the slick rocky trail, and for being completely soaked with sweat and rain, it would have been a perfect morning. A few times, I stopped to ask a farmer or rock-buster for directions.

“Rimbi?” I would say, I’m sure looking something like a very large and very wet rat. Each time he or she would point down the direction I was already headed. Some laughed at me, one woman inexplicably gave me the finger. One girl, probably no more than 14, working the fields with her little brother, gave me the widest, most wonderful smile as I desperately tried to communicate myself.

She was one of the many child laborers I saw in Sikkim, working in fields, or as rock busters, or hauling brush. They were only slightly less common that the school children, in their immaculate uniforms, trudging up and down the hills on their way to school.

It seemed like all of the laborers were working on government-sponsored development projects—paving a road, building a bridge. It was unclear exactly what these projects were supposed to do, except make it slightly cheaper for folks to make their way to the already-overcrowded cities, or to hospitals too far away and too expensive to be of any importance to the average rural Sikkimese person. I suppose better roads do make it a little easier for people like me to come and visit, and pour my dollars into the stalled Sikkim economy.

*******

One sign I saw in Forum Mall was for a clothing store called Sarovar. It read like this:

“The Industrial Revolution: Freedom from Slowness
The French Revolution: Freedom from Bondage
The Russian Revolution: Freedom from Exploitation
The Green Revolution: Freedom from Hunger
Sarovar: Freedom from THE USUAL!”

The implication, I think is: “Well, congratulations India! We’ve successfully become efficient, free, and well-fed—now, let’s get hip!” This attitude is pretty common among the middle class. Even if things aren’t perfect now, given time, and more economic liberalization, the poor will be brought into the fold. The term “middle class” itself is emblematic of this perspective—the middle class, those wealthy enough to go to Forum and buy stuff, represents only about 10% of the population, although that proportion is growing.

Next door to Forum, in Crossword Books, one of the “Crossword Recommends” books is “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand. Rand was born in Russia, and developed a philosophy of extreme individualism that she put forth in a few novels and several nonfiction works. The self-interest that Smith described positively in “The Wealth of Nations” assumes a normative status in Rand’s work—the pursuit of self-interest is an ethical principle unto itself, and capitalism is the ideal system for organizing individuals under this ethical principle. Rand is phenomenally popular in India—every bookshelf I’ve seen has a copy of one of her books, and every bookstore has a whole Ayn Rand display.

Perhaps I’d understand this rampant individualism a little better if I’d lived through the years of India’s clumsy 5-year plans, the interventionist ‘mixed economy’ strategy, the defunct alliance with the USSR. In West Bengal, the communist party came to power in the ‘70’s, effectively implemented land reform, and then proceeded to completely strangle industry. The new Chief Minister of West Bengal is widely regarded as a good fellow, primarily because he’s been making the state more attractive to foreign investors. After decades of corruption spoiling the good intentions of the liberals, I understand frustration with socialism of any sort.

But, amongst the elite, the abandonment of social responsibility seems nearly total. Soon after I arrived in India, a national debate was flaring up about the quotas (or reservations) for lower caste individuals and the OBC’s, or Other Backward Classes—the poor and educationally disadvantaged. At India’s hyper-competitive technology and medical universities, students went on strike, wearing t-shirts that read “Kill Me Before You Kill Merit.”

And it’s not that the reservations were even such a good idea. Even people deeply concerned with social equality, and many supporters of quotas in theory feel that the quota system is corrupt, and a poor way of achieving social equality. They argue that what the government needs to do is to spend money at the lowest levels of the education system, so that quotas aren’t needed for admittance to the universities.

But the way the national debate over quotas has played out makes me skeptical that this dubious method of achieving social equality will be replaced by anything better. The argument I’ve heard most often is that they make the Indian workforce less competitive in the world market, and deprive smart people of good jobs. For these people, achieving social equality is so far down on the list of priorities that it doesn’t warrant mention. Plus, the same week of the debate, when someone would occasionally argue that the government should pursue equality at the lowest levels of education first, Parliament passed a bill removing quotas from primary schools.

On CNN India (which bears its pro-corporate bias even more blatantly than in the US) the coverage of the quota debate bordered on the absurd. The tag line for the debate was “Reserve or Deserve?” casting privileged students as diligent, and hard working, and the lower-caste students as thieves, attempting to steal what is not rightfully theirs. Pro-quota demonstrators were displayed turning cars over and clashing with police, while anti-quota protestors where shown on hunger strike, lying on blankets in a Gandhi-like state of somber serenity.

A month later, when anti-quota demonstrators vandalized the dormitories of lower caste students, and harassed them into moving, the story didn’t make CNN; it was 5th page news in Kolkata’s Daily Telegraph.

A fellow I met on the train, who graduated from a prestigious business school, told me that quotas were not needed. I asked him if it wasn’t easier for high-caste and rich students to get admitted, and he said it wasn’t. I expected him to say that at his school many low-caste students were admitted without quotas; instead, he said that entrance exams measure natural intelligence and not anything you need to be taught, so rich students who attend fancy prep schools don’t have any real advantage. “It’s only language and basic maths,” he told me. When pushed, he admitted that, “Yes, well, the language is English, and the whole test is in English, so there is a difficulty there. But the maths, you don’t need to go to school for that.”

When I consider my afternoon in Forum Mall and my day trekking through Sikkim, it seems as though I was experiencing two completely different nations, with entirely different concerns and difficulties. The panic-stricken higher-secondary students have nervous breakdowns preparing for college entrance exams; the teenagers in Sikkim have been working for years on family farms and small-scale construction projects.

It’s easy to be high and mighty about inequality in a foreign country. It’s easier to see, I think, when you’re not burdened by the routine and culture that masks it at home. How often do I travel to impoverished areas of the US? How many days can I go between seeing a run down neighborhood, or meeting a person who cannot afford health insurance? For me, at home in Northern Virginia, avoiding poverty is a matter of habit.

I suppose what makes this ignorance so terrifying is that it can be accomplished at close range: the panging sense of embarrassment and guilt and responsibility that you feel when you see a person worse off than you gradually can fade away, explained away as a product of biology, or optimistically dismissed in the name of development. And development, we all know, has costs.

But who will bear them?