Monday August 22nd, 2005The next day Jasmine and Hillel leave early. We teach the other batch alone, just me and David. I am exhausted and feeling a sore throat coming. Yet it's going well, although in the afternoon I have to delve into resources of energy that I didn't know I had and I make no sense even to myself. It's still going great, that's how terrific our program is. In the session on perceptions, David and I act out the tarantula episode from last night. Kids are rolling in laughter, getting a huge kick out of it. We do a great job acting it out, too. Must be the endorphins flooding into the system as the program comes to a close. When we're done, we are surrounded by our entourages. Girls talk to David about further training or somesuch, I start making photo CDs for the boyz.
Ansa, Aswati, me, and Anoop
I am running out of juice on my computer- have to go get the cord in the room. Being the street-smart worldly traveler that I am, I decide to go alone up the hill to the guesthouse. I'll be right back, I say. It's pitch dark. At first it's OK, as there is some leftover light from a lamp in the campus, then it turns completely black. Ever tried to climb a hill at night? Not that easy. I stumble about, losing the path every now and then. Two guys that live under the guesthouse spot me. They must think I am absolutely out of my mind. They shine a flashlight down the hill for me. I make it up, and grab the cord. Front gate is locked - that means I have to go down the same way. Wee! Serves me right, next time I will try to be a brave outdoor cat, I will think twice. I only fall about four or five times, unfortunately it rained earlier today. When I say rained, I mean rained. We're at the tail end of the monsoon season. When it rains, it pours. I come down looking like Nikki Lauda after a winning Formula 1 race. Perhaps not feeling quite as victorious. It's hot, so I dry rather quickly and soon enough I look almost normal again. Nidhin comes with Arun and they claim us for dinner. We bid farewell to the disappointed crowds, and happily retreat with the two of them into the faculty cafeteria, where we can rest for a bit. David is on a roll with his inquisitive questions on all things delicate. But nobody minds. Good times. We take pictures with the chef, who, according to David, has the best smile on Earth. The chef teases Nidhin again, who slaps him on his head. That flatters the worldly and street-smart traveler silly. Ah, the simple pleasures of life.
When we get back to the house, I finally finish the darn movie, not having enough energy to pack. Why bother anyway, it's going to be impossible to pack prudently at this point anyway. Might as well stuff everything in using brute animal force at the very last moment in the morning.
23rd August, 2005
The alarm clock goes off at 4am. It's pitch dark still. I turn on the light - no light. No electricity, in fact. Wunderbar. How am I going to shower and pack in the dark? I saw a candle somewhere, where was it? I rack my brain, walk around the kitchen and living room area like a blind man without a dog. Or a woman, for that matter. Yes, the little cupboard in the corner, that's where it was. I break the candle in half, so that David can have a light, too. I play with the matches, trying to get the broken half to light up. After a good amount of time, the sucker is finally lit. I'm burstingly proud how well I did in extreme conditions. Electricity comes back on right after that. Naturally. I shower and perform another stuff-the-suitcase ritual dance. Nidhin and Arun come. They are coming with us to Vagamon, for today is the beginning of their five day holiday. We part with the gorgeous boys there and proceed to the airport.
Nidhin, Arun, and I
I can feel an onslaught of a flu or something coming. Tired, sore throat, bleary eyes. Curious about New Delhi though. We are heading for our big and famous conference on Partition that Umpakaf put together. Tomorrow will be the opening. Hillel is feeling grumpy about it, for it seems it will be way more academic then he wanted it to be, but at this point, we can only go with the flow. New Delhi seems like Washington D.C. to me. Certainly after Kolkata it does. It has many green parks, is rather clean (depends on one's comparative frame) and spatious, it has low official-looking buildings. And many many roundabouts. It's like a maze, I have no idea how to navigate through it. We are staying with Hillel's friend Sharon. She came to India as a Fulbright fellow - studying Indian dance. Then she stayed for another half a year, another year, two years, forever. She is one of the most famous of Indian traditional dancers, even though she's a Litvak from Detroit. Sharon lives in a colonial mansion on Barakhamba road. It's a three story house with majestic staircases, patios, balconies. Her living quarters are at the top, on the roof, sort of. There is a beautiful shaded area with sofas and pillows to read and take tea in, a breakfast alcove on the other side of the roof. Her and her daughter Tara's rooms (we met Tara in Bombay in February) are two wooden shacks on the side of the roof. There is also a kitchen and living room area. Sharon has beautiful original Indian artwork everywhere - large bronze statue, small statuettes everywhere, things hanging, standing, lying about. It has to be one of the coziest living arrangements in the world. David, Hillel, Sharon and I head out into town for dinner. Well, we are driven into town. Sharon has a driver, of course. She also has a cook, a maid and some other guys whose jobs I didn't determine. Restaurant took it's name from a thieves'market - chor bazaar - where trinkets of all sorts are sold. It's called Chor Bizaar and it's remarkable by it's collection of furniture and antiques of all varieties. Our table is a remodeled four post bed. All the chairs, plates, silverware in the restaurant are different. There are no two identical things - you won't even find two identical forks. Salad bar is an old car underneath a staircase that leads nowhere.
Dining in a four post bed - Chor Bizaar
August 24th, 2005
In the morning Sharon takes me and David to the American school (elementary, middle, and high school) to see a South Indian dance performance. The school blows our mind. It's monstrously luxurious and high-tech. They have two or three libraries, swimming pool outside, two cafeterias, large new auditorium and hundreds of spoiled rotten kids. School is naturally fenced off and gated and guarded by security armed to their teeth. I bet that these kids are loaded into limos or buses after school and then transported into their gated residencies. This way they don't have to be in touch with real India out there at all. Performance is interesting, the dancer has a beautiful Southern Indian outfit. It's dedicated to Krishna's birthday, coming up in five days. She explains all her poses and symbolic of each move, even though it falls on the deaf ears of those vile teenagers. Govinda maduram, gopi maduram is one of the songs that remained stuck in my head ever since. Must find it somehow somewhere. It's a song about how beautiful Krishna and everything he touches and looks at is (maduram being beautiful, govinda being eyes, gopi being girls-dancers that Krishna hangs with in the hood).
Depiction of Krishna - one hand signifies a peacock feather, the other a flute
After the performance we are taken for a tour of the school. I feel rather bitter about it, completely amazed by the stunning difference of lifestyles inside and outside of this fenced-off monstrosity. Can't wait to get out.
On the way home we stop by at the market. I still need a bag for all the acquired stuff. I buy five. Yes, five bags. One tiny, two small ones, one bigger one to fit them all in, and a beautiful leather purse out of camel skin, stiched with camel skin. Girl's gotta have bags. And bags got to color coordinate with clothing. Thus they need to come in all colors and shapes. I also buy two pairs of red slippers and a shawl. Contended after an adrenaline rush that accompanies such hectic shopping we retreat home and prepare for the conference opening. I decide to dress up. My black skirt has a slit on the side that shows leg way up above the knee - something I should have considered before I headed out the house. Here in India you can run around almost in a bra- with your belly sticking out and all, but if you show the teensiest bit of leg, heads turn, people stare, it's just not done. We are at the Ashok Hotel, which is very fancy and all, but I still feel inappropriate, doing my best to hold the bloody skirt together. When I sit, you can't see the slit at all, so I sit a lot. We find the banquet hall and I am very happy to spot Rohit there from a distance.
Rohit is Tara's friend. We met him in Bombay in February and I was very impressed by him. He's a young (my age, hence very young) writer, published a best selling book and writes witty articles on just about anything that strikes his fancy. Runs a few blogs, meddles into theater, simply a renaissance man. Took me about a month to find him online - I kept spelling his name wrong and I remembered his book completely wrong. The book is called Play on Edward, but I was googling, for unexplicable reasons, A Friend of Emanuel. I didn't even know Emanuel back then, so who knows where the heck that came from. Anyway, I found him, we emailed back and forth, I saw his work and really liked particularly one short story that was turned into a comics by a twenty year old American whiz kid from Yale. Story was a fiction about Fadereu, a man that fades away if he stands still, and based on the Gujarat riots in 2002, when over 3,000 Hindus and Muslims burnt each other to death. I decided we must bring Rohit to Delhi conference and keep taps on him for ?'reality check' on our projects and partners in India, as well as for inspiration and contacts for other interesting people.
Conference is crowded. We have the Minister of Defense, Sri Gopal Mukherjee, speaking, as well as the Governer of West Bengal, who happens to be Mahatma Gandhi's grandson. Gandhi has a beautiful speech. At the reception one can meet all sorts of characters. Conference rats, writers-alcoholics, academics turned politicians, unsuccessful activists. Umpakaf seizes me every now and then and introduces me to random groups of men from various think tanks, which gets very tiring after awhile. At the dinner we are approached by a handicapped and by then also extremely drunk writer of sorts, who is angered by Americans meddling into Partition. We don't understand much of what he says, for he happens to also have a bad speech impediment. He keeps insisting that we don't understand because we are dumb Americans. Umpakaf is drunk himself by now. He has a highly unpleasant habit of quite offensive bragging when he's drunk. He asks David, out of the blue: "Do you know who this is? No? Well if you knew anything about India, you'd know he's somebody!" This he repeats with different people about ten times. Good times. Me, David and Rohit get out quickly and find a bar for a drink or two. I shall not bring any slitted skirts to India next time, though I try my best not to make anything out of all the stares. We take a rickshaw home. I am tired tired tired, my everything hurts, I have a stuffed nose and my ear is beginning to complain.
Me, Rohit and some of the participants - still laughing (BEFORE everybody got wasted)
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