Is this a joke?
31 August 2009
23 August 2009
Wisdom, Prosperity, Good Fortune
About a week ago, the men of the town began constructing a structure across from our flat which happens to be right beside one of the local temples. They worked late into the night putting together the steel poles. The next day began the painting and the putting up of brightly colored neon lights that flash all night long. Next went in the sound system and finally, the statues of Lord Ganesha. Today began the 10 day long festival of Ganesha; the supreme god of wisdom, prosperity and good fortune.
This festival begins a month of many. Unlike Aluna Festival which is more for the girls who fast for many days for their future husbands, this festival is geared for the boys. They stay up late building the pavilions that fill all the societies in town and then they will sleep outside to stay with Ganesha.
The Hindu holy scriptures tell the story of Parvati; the wife of Lord Shiva, and how she created Ganesha from sandalwood out of need of a guard while her husband was away at war. She thought of Ganesha as a son and flew into a rage when her husband, Shiva came home from war and not knowing who Ganesha was, cut off his head. In order to pacify Parvati, men were sent to find a replacement son for Parvati whose head could also be lopped off and pieced together with Ganesha's body. It sounds like a crazy story and that's mostly because it is. The body that was found was that of an elephant and that's why the idol is now a figure of an elephant with many arms.
Driving through any city, town or village in the weeks leading up to this festival, hundreds of statues of Ganesh are being molded and painted by artisans. The colors of these is quite shocking; all neons and brightly made up. There is nothing quite like the Indian love for the bright and flashy. And the best part is that each little community in towns (known as the societies) build their own pavilion for the Ganesha and it gets quite competitive. I hope to find my way to all of the spots during the 10 days. Only problem is, I will be forced to eat more ladu with each of these stops. Ladu is made from ghee (refined butter), sugar and spices. It's delicious but I feel it clogging my arteries and slowing down my movements. Ten days of it and I just might die.
The festival still has 9 days to go and I'll have so much more to write later and plenty of pictures, too. Stay tuned...
This festival begins a month of many. Unlike Aluna Festival which is more for the girls who fast for many days for their future husbands, this festival is geared for the boys. They stay up late building the pavilions that fill all the societies in town and then they will sleep outside to stay with Ganesha.
The Hindu holy scriptures tell the story of Parvati; the wife of Lord Shiva, and how she created Ganesha from sandalwood out of need of a guard while her husband was away at war. She thought of Ganesha as a son and flew into a rage when her husband, Shiva came home from war and not knowing who Ganesha was, cut off his head. In order to pacify Parvati, men were sent to find a replacement son for Parvati whose head could also be lopped off and pieced together with Ganesha's body. It sounds like a crazy story and that's mostly because it is. The body that was found was that of an elephant and that's why the idol is now a figure of an elephant with many arms.
Driving through any city, town or village in the weeks leading up to this festival, hundreds of statues of Ganesh are being molded and painted by artisans. The colors of these is quite shocking; all neons and brightly made up. There is nothing quite like the Indian love for the bright and flashy. And the best part is that each little community in towns (known as the societies) build their own pavilion for the Ganesha and it gets quite competitive. I hope to find my way to all of the spots during the 10 days. Only problem is, I will be forced to eat more ladu with each of these stops. Ladu is made from ghee (refined butter), sugar and spices. It's delicious but I feel it clogging my arteries and slowing down my movements. Ten days of it and I just might die.
The festival still has 9 days to go and I'll have so much more to write later and plenty of pictures, too. Stay tuned...
11 August 2009
The Many and the Brave that Travel Superfast
As our train creeps along at a camel's walking pace; the countryside merging into smelly, congested cities, children hop on the ends of cars for a free (albeit, taken) ride. They crawl at times, shuffle, past our sticky blue vinyl seats with their palms outstretched for our leftover food and spare change. The look in their eyes tells you they are adept at making you feel sorry for their plight. The droop of their brown eyes is meant to pull at your heard strings. I turn my head away because I can't take one more pathetic look and because instead of compassion I am feeling aggravation and annoyance at their constant begging and the way they pass by the Indian passengers for us, the soft American women.
The train touts that it is the "Superfast" Express train but, the hours tick by slowly, sweat trickling between my shoulder blades; makings it's slow crawl down my back like our train snaking it's way south to Chennai. Flat fields of green in Gujarat turn into dry, acrid looking soil with patches of green gardens, their borders cleanly lined with fierce looking cacti plants. Occasionally, a man working the soil wearing the loincloth/skirt common in the south, will look up from his toils as our train passes him by. I am too far away to see a far away look in his eye; our slow "Express" train moving too quickly to catch the lift of slight, darkly browned shoulders in a sigh.
There are so many ways to write about my travels to make it sound like an adventure but, sometimes it feels more like a misadventure than anything. "Devoted", five times daily, praying men prey on us, chatting us up, asking unsuspecting and naive Milly for her phone number, offering food from their personal supplies. Sadhus squat on the ends of our car, mostly looking out the window or doors at the passing landscape. In the middle of the night when I, unfortunately, wake with the unstoppable urge to pee, I see him still sitting there and an eerie feeling passes over me; one I wish to ignore. Has he only been looking out the doors this whole time, contemplating how we are all connected to a cosmic universe, or did his eyes only begin to wander?
The distasteful journey continues with me actually plucking up enough courage to throw my trash right out the window with the rest of the passengers; adding to the refuse piles made up of tin trays from untasty meals, bags, bottles, used feminine products, etc. I feel like out the window I just threw out my American bred civic responsibility to keep our spaces green. Sure, things are green here, but they are also red from Thumbs Up wrappers and silver from tin plates and cans. The first few times I did it there was a pain in my heart, the 4th, 5th, and 6th times I was a little more numb to it. Hey - it kept my tiny, crawl space relatively free of debris.
Thirty-six hours, a bus ride and a short walk later, we arrive travel worm and Brother's of the Holy Cross where we were told we will be staying. In typical Indian fashion, they tell us they are sorry but, no women can stay here, it is a man's dorm. "But, we were told to come here by your staff" we argue in our now Indian inflected English. A half hour later, they admit their mistake; we are in fact staying in a dorm next door and they deposit us in a room that makes me think of a bad camp experience. The mosquitoes immediately begin to feast on my fresh meat and the bed is akin to the concrete floor it rests on but, all I can think about is ripping (peeling is more like it) off the grime in a shower (cold, please) and finally going to the bathroom in relative privacy. And this time I don't want to see my waste disappearing in a trail down the tracks, Oh, thank you God, Krishna, Buddha or whomever is listening for soap and water!
The return trip has been forgotten for the moment out of sheer unadulterated highs brought on my walnut facial scrubs, hemp shampoo and clean underwear. Oh, the bliss.
This is the account of a brave traveler in India.
The train touts that it is the "Superfast" Express train but, the hours tick by slowly, sweat trickling between my shoulder blades; makings it's slow crawl down my back like our train snaking it's way south to Chennai. Flat fields of green in Gujarat turn into dry, acrid looking soil with patches of green gardens, their borders cleanly lined with fierce looking cacti plants. Occasionally, a man working the soil wearing the loincloth/skirt common in the south, will look up from his toils as our train passes him by. I am too far away to see a far away look in his eye; our slow "Express" train moving too quickly to catch the lift of slight, darkly browned shoulders in a sigh.
There are so many ways to write about my travels to make it sound like an adventure but, sometimes it feels more like a misadventure than anything. "Devoted", five times daily, praying men prey on us, chatting us up, asking unsuspecting and naive Milly for her phone number, offering food from their personal supplies. Sadhus squat on the ends of our car, mostly looking out the window or doors at the passing landscape. In the middle of the night when I, unfortunately, wake with the unstoppable urge to pee, I see him still sitting there and an eerie feeling passes over me; one I wish to ignore. Has he only been looking out the doors this whole time, contemplating how we are all connected to a cosmic universe, or did his eyes only begin to wander?
The distasteful journey continues with me actually plucking up enough courage to throw my trash right out the window with the rest of the passengers; adding to the refuse piles made up of tin trays from untasty meals, bags, bottles, used feminine products, etc. I feel like out the window I just threw out my American bred civic responsibility to keep our spaces green. Sure, things are green here, but they are also red from Thumbs Up wrappers and silver from tin plates and cans. The first few times I did it there was a pain in my heart, the 4th, 5th, and 6th times I was a little more numb to it. Hey - it kept my tiny, crawl space relatively free of debris.
Thirty-six hours, a bus ride and a short walk later, we arrive travel worm and Brother's of the Holy Cross where we were told we will be staying. In typical Indian fashion, they tell us they are sorry but, no women can stay here, it is a man's dorm. "But, we were told to come here by your staff" we argue in our now Indian inflected English. A half hour later, they admit their mistake; we are in fact staying in a dorm next door and they deposit us in a room that makes me think of a bad camp experience. The mosquitoes immediately begin to feast on my fresh meat and the bed is akin to the concrete floor it rests on but, all I can think about is ripping (peeling is more like it) off the grime in a shower (cold, please) and finally going to the bathroom in relative privacy. And this time I don't want to see my waste disappearing in a trail down the tracks, Oh, thank you God, Krishna, Buddha or whomever is listening for soap and water!
The return trip has been forgotten for the moment out of sheer unadulterated highs brought on my walnut facial scrubs, hemp shampoo and clean underwear. Oh, the bliss.
This is the account of a brave traveler in India.
04 August 2009
More Rain, Please!
The rainy season is now in full swing. Women wearing brightly patterned saris with blue pieces of tarp tied around their heads for protection trudge off barefoot into the rice field for a day of hard labor. My van flies by students racing determined through the downpour to the school still too far into the distance; their skinny legs pedaling fast down the crowded street. Life doesn’t slow down when the rains come – this isn’t like D.C. in a snow flurry where no one drives, busses stop running and people fly into paranoia and buy every food item they think they might need for a 10 day shut in. This is like Buffalo, NY in the winter! People don’t just suck it up and make it through, they thrive! I must get asked at least twice a day if I enjoy the atmosphere (which translates to, do you like the weather?). I hate to tell them it’s not that fun being wet all day and the mud between my toes is slightly disturbing and the mold is growing like ivy on a brick wall (only much faster) because it’s so damp so, I smile and say, “Everything is so green! (yes…the mold is green) It is very beautiful!” They take this to mean that I love the rainy season that is securing their financial future for the year as much as they do.
Nothing really prepared me for this experience in a way that I would know how to respond to some of the things that I see and hear so often here. Yesterday, I was teaching my 11th Standard class of Commerce Stream students. These kids have started coming to Madhi from rural schools and their English is far below what I expected from this age group. There is a rather confusing way that schools are made up here. Madhi is a government high school but, not all the kids have gone there from k-12. Some transfer in to the school in 8th Standard coming from schools where there may not be a teacher even present every day. Others come in 11th like this class because they want to take Commerce courses so that they can get in to College. These students won’t be studying anything but Commerce after graduation. Their life is decided for them in 10th grade when they take their board exams. One student told me yesterday that his dream was to be an engineer and I thought that was great but his bench-mate said that it was only a dream because the only thing he could do was b-com. His future is in running a shop or working for an airport. The sad thing wasn’t the hopeless sound of his voice. It wasn’t the look of resolution on his face. The sad thing was the smile that said, “This is my life, might as well wear a smile doing it.”
Is teaching them English really going to change their lives? I am looking for signs that it has given them tools to pick their way through the refuse piles that litter gutters. I am looking for excitement in my classrooms not because the novelty is here to do a half hour side show routine but, because I am teaching them something valuable. One of my co-teachers asked me to read an essay that a student was presenting the other day. It was about the role of the teacher and what they mean to society. It ended with a line that went something like, “Teachers are changing societies by bringing knowledge to the community”. I look at the men and women working at my school in Madhi and I think of the relationships that I am building with them daily here and think that they really are giving something of value to these kid’s lives even if it means that they will be doing a B-comm job the rest of their lives. Maybe I can be the inspiration giver. Maybe my 11th Standard student really CAN make it as an engineer.
Nothing really prepared me for this experience in a way that I would know how to respond to some of the things that I see and hear so often here. Yesterday, I was teaching my 11th Standard class of Commerce Stream students. These kids have started coming to Madhi from rural schools and their English is far below what I expected from this age group. There is a rather confusing way that schools are made up here. Madhi is a government high school but, not all the kids have gone there from k-12. Some transfer in to the school in 8th Standard coming from schools where there may not be a teacher even present every day. Others come in 11th like this class because they want to take Commerce courses so that they can get in to College. These students won’t be studying anything but Commerce after graduation. Their life is decided for them in 10th grade when they take their board exams. One student told me yesterday that his dream was to be an engineer and I thought that was great but his bench-mate said that it was only a dream because the only thing he could do was b-com. His future is in running a shop or working for an airport. The sad thing wasn’t the hopeless sound of his voice. It wasn’t the look of resolution on his face. The sad thing was the smile that said, “This is my life, might as well wear a smile doing it.”
Is teaching them English really going to change their lives? I am looking for signs that it has given them tools to pick their way through the refuse piles that litter gutters. I am looking for excitement in my classrooms not because the novelty is here to do a half hour side show routine but, because I am teaching them something valuable. One of my co-teachers asked me to read an essay that a student was presenting the other day. It was about the role of the teacher and what they mean to society. It ended with a line that went something like, “Teachers are changing societies by bringing knowledge to the community”. I look at the men and women working at my school in Madhi and I think of the relationships that I am building with them daily here and think that they really are giving something of value to these kid’s lives even if it means that they will be doing a B-comm job the rest of their lives. Maybe I can be the inspiration giver. Maybe my 11th Standard student really CAN make it as an engineer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)