Happy Teacher's Day!

This post is admittedly belated, as the joys of Teacher's Day took place last Wednesday, but I will try to communicate the loveliness of that holiday despite the time elapsed. Teacher's Day is celebrated on the 5th of September throughout India, as an occasion for students everywhere to recognize the contributions their teachers make in their lives.  Even knowing that such a concept exists here is enough to make any American teacher envious, but the reality of the loveliness that transpired will knock your proverbial socks off.  From my first day at school, I was told that on the 5th of September I would have to wear a sari. I woke up early Wednesday morning, had Tangi braid my hair to the side and Hannah wrap my sari as best she could, which was considerably better than our first attempts (see: gorees in sarees). For the first time since I've been here, I put on my once signature bindi and walked out the door in heels and bangles, just as I was told to do. It felt like every single person on the metro was angling to catch a glimpse of the foreigner in the clumsy sari, their stares boring into me all the way to the station near my school, where I bumped into some other teachers I knew, also dressed for the occasion in saris.  The first thing my friend, Sushama, said to me was, "You look lovely! Don't worry, we will fix your sari." Ha! I had already told my co-workers who sit in the same staff room as me that they are allowed to laugh at me before helping me, as long as they help me eventually.  I entered the school, to the happy chorus of kids pushing each other out of the way to wish me a Happy Teacher's Day and touch my feet, in the traditional, formal way of showing respect to elders. Peeking into classrooms, I saw students rushing around their rooms, decorating the walls and preparing the soda and snacks they had brought in neat arrays.  

Busy bees preparing classrooms

Upon entering the staff room, Papiya, one of the more senior teachers who wears a sari every day and has been hounding me to wear one from the beginning, was so glad to see me wearing the sari and immediately took it off me to retie it.  Unsatisfied with her work, she sent a student to get another teacher to do a neater job, and her pleats were so perfect that I got comments for the rest of the day about how well the sari was wrapped.  Thanks, Davinder! An endless stream of kids flowed in and out of the staff room all morning, bearing flowers, chocolate and cards for their teachers. Eager to witness everything that was happening, I started wandering the halls, sneaking glances into classes, until some girls from 7C saw me on my own and (literally)   pulled me into their classroom.  

Hurriedly creating the display

They had adorned the room with streamers and balloons, set up a table with refreshments, and, most notably, spelled out the class teacher's name on the teacher's desk in rose petals.  As Shruti, the class teacher, approached, kids ran in to warn everyone, and the whole class went into hyper speed, putting finishing touches on their handiwork, straightening their chairs, and cleaning up any final messes. As Shruti walked in, the kids cried out with joy, bursting balloons filled with rose petals over her head, and throwing more petals on her as she walked to sit in her chair.  Several students gave her gifts and flowers, and then she gave a little spiel about how lovely they were, how 

Finished masterpiece

proud she was of them, how they should never forget that their first and most important teachers will always be their parents, that they should thank their parents when they get home, and that the greatest gift they can give her as students is to study hard and do well in their classes. The whole thing was adorable.  

Shruti Ma'am addresses her eager fans

Fancy teachers assemble

Soon it was time for the assembly, and the whole school went outside to sit in the outdoor foyer and watch a seemingly interminable string of speeches and songs, extolling the value of teachers.  It occurred to me that while Indians seem to love giving speeches, they are equally uninterested in listening to them.   


This was evident in the ratio of length and quantity of the speeches to chatter noise level among everyone in the crowd, students and teachers alike.The assembly ended with every teacher being called up individually to receive a rose from the 11th grade students, while the rest of the student body cheered and yelled their enthusiastic little heads off. They definitely forgot about me, which was fine, until Sushama realized they weren't going to call my name and sent another teacher to alert them to this fact and call my name.  Sure enough, I received my blessings and my rose, before heading up to the "party" I had been invited to in 7B. I again witnessed a class teacher showered with rose petals, gifts and a whole lotta love, as she entered the class for the first time that day. 

Shanu Ma'am is ambushed with love...

...and rose petals

The kids in that class had stood and made fruit salad (fruit salad!), neatly cutting apples, pears and bananas into bowls and sprinkling them with lemon juice, all brought from home, for teachers to enjoy.  They made me sit down and served me plates of snacks, which, like any good Indian host, they insisted I finish.  At one point I tried to leave my plate, and they literally ran after me with it for me to take.  Several cups of sugary fizz and a plate or three of masala cheetos later, school was over for a half day, ending at 11:30.  I walked to my fellow ETA Sean's school a few blocks away, toting my half-dozen roses I had received and trying desperately not to trip on my sari.  I ended up wearing it the whole day, including our visit to an international book fair and our English Language Teaching class.

The whirlwind of joy and affection that was Teacher's Day seemed to go by in a flash.  But let me tell you, that experience, that outpouring of appreciation, will last me a long time.  Jealous, anyone?

Why You Gotta Make It About Body Image?

"Yael, you look like you've lost weight, I can see it in your face."

"You are skinny so you can wear cotton saris…we [gestures at me] fatties can only wear synthetic and silk."

"I've noticed that you've been losing weight.  I look at you and realize there's a lot less of you to look at. Are you keeping well?"

"What do you put on your skin? It's so fair and glowing."

"Ma'am, you are looking sooo pretty today."

"When are you going to wear a sari? When you wear a sari you must wear bangles and heels."

"When did you get your nose pierced?  Your piercing is too small, it should be more prominent, you should get a bigger one."

"Why don't you wear kajal on your eyes?  You would look so nice if you wore kajal."

"Ma'am you have the most beautiful eyes."

"Ma'am you must wear your dupatta.  Where is your dupatta?"

"You look so lovely in Indian dress.  Do you wear Indian dress in the US? You should wear it all the time."

"You have such a beautiful face. Your face is so nice, Ma'am."

"You would make a beautiful Indian bride. Do you want to marry an Indian man or only an American?"

These are examples of comments I receive on a daily basis, multiple times a day, from practically every Indian person I know here. These words come from my students, my co-workers, my coordinating teacher, the Fulbright coordinator, my English language teacher trainer and my landlord's wife.  To be a foreigner in India is to live in a constant state of judgment.  It's very possible that Indian people are treated the same way by each other, but I can only speak about my own experience.  People at school, students and teachers alike, comment many times over the course of the day on how I look, and while it's usually positive, I find that I feel overwhelmed by how much people pay attention to how I look. Certainly India is a country where physical appearance means a great deal, albeit in a very different way from in the US. Whereas in the US people in the working world shy from color and sparkle, women in India dress in matching suits and saris every single day in the most dazzling array of similar and contrasting colors.  Red and green are not Christmas colors here, azure and magenta make an excellent match and the dupattas (scarves) of the salwar kameez usually contain a bit of pattern from both the top and the bottom of the suit.  The people I work with are delighted in a way that exudes pride, to see me wear Indian clothing, as if they personally chose the fabric or made the suit or designed the look.  The children are also fascinated by the way I look.  For the first two weeks of school, one little girl got out of her seat several times during every class to tell me my eyes were beautiful.  By the 7th time, flattered as I was, I just wanted to yell, "OK! My eyes are pretty but sit your booty in your damn seat and stop telling me about it!" What complicates the issue even more for me is the problematic nature of Indian body image among women, in general.  Of course it is not to say that body image issues are "better" or "worse" than in the US, but they are without a doubt very different.  For one thing, the pervasive nature of the former colonization of India has left deeply ingrained ideals of beauty, based on people of European descent.  It follows, then, that white skin is a coveted attribute, as evidenced by the aisles of skin lightening treatments and creams abundant in every supermarket, chemist and corner store. A couple of weeks ago I sat through a very uncomfortable conversation in which my coordinating teacher went on and on about how "lovely," "glowing," and "fair" my skin is.  I said that in the US, no one wants to be as pale as me, and that I think I look better when my skin is more tanned.  I also said that I just was lucky to have clear skin, and that my mother also has very nice skin.  This prompted my coworker to tell me that her mother has lovely light skin, but her skin is a darker tone and she wishes she didn't have such "ugly, dark skin."  Skin color is very important to so many people here, and in my personal experiences in the school, children are likely to be treated differently based on this, among other factors such as caste (though the two are many times connected). There is, of course, a well-documented history explaining how these distinctions came to be important, not just in colonial India but also in the establishment and perpetuation of caste.  It is striking, however, how this long history that I learned about several times in the context of various examples of imperialism throughout the world comes into play in my daily life here.

In an country where EVERYONE has an opinion, getting so much attention for just being present with a foreign face seems to incline people to share their opinion about you all the time.  From the guy behind me in line at the ATM who told me to press the "Withdraw from savings" button on the screen (Uh…thank you sir, I've used an ATM before and am obviously old enough to have a bank account, so back off) to the lady who warned me not to lean on the doors of the metro because they will open and I will fall out (Listen, lady, this ain't my first rodeo), the frequent exchange of opinions about even the most personal choices is not limited to people you know well, or even at all.  It's sometimes difficult to come to terms with the fact that the way people show concern is by giving you advice in a way that comes across as, "this is just a suggestion but if you don't do it you will look like/be an idiot." 

Grains of salt are taken liberally here, but it's when people comment on my weight that the undue attention to my physical appearance feels most intrusive.  Weight does not have the same connotation here; of course there is a wide variety of body types, but, among women, it is socially acceptable to comment on another's weight. For whatever reason, whether because the clothing is not form-fitting and is tailored to my body, or because our apartment does not have a full-length mirror, I find that I am generally less self-conscious here about my weight than I was in the US.  In fact, I rarely think about it, whereas at home it would cross my mind at least a few times a day.  Yet when people comment on my weight, whether to say that I'm a "fattie" (yes, it happened, see my post about wearing saris) or to tell me that there's "a lot less of me to look at," all kinds of neuroses about my appearance come to the forefront.  On one hand, I've never received so much positive attention about my appearance as I do here in India, especially at school, where it feels like every child and teacher has to tell me I look pretty, that my kurta is a nice color, that my eyes are "so lovely."  On the other hand, hearing so much feedback about how I look every day makes me realize how much people are paying attention to my appearance, and it makes me uncomfortable.  It's possible that it's no more attention than I receive in the US, but the straightforward and frequent nature of the way people communicate their every thought to you makes it feel like a lot more than I am used to, and it can be overwhelming.

Diversity means something very different in India than it does in the US.  While each class at school contains students of different castes, who speak a variety of languages at home and practice different religions, a great many have never been outside of Delhi, let alone outside the country.  If the shape of your eyes is unusual, you must be Chinese, "immigration" in this country refers to people that move from one state to another, and being from the state of Bihar is fair game for your classmates to make fun of you.  It also follows that when my students think of the US, they think of a country filled with light-skinned Christians and a few people from other countries that would never be considered American.  The classic example of this perception occurred when Patricia used the giant photos given to us as part of a pack of ESL materials from the State Department.  Tricia held up a photo of a classroom in the US, depicting a group of students in a classroom, and asked her class to tell her who was in the picture.  "Ma'am, there are three Americans and one girl from Africa," they responded, pointing at the one Black child in the picture.  Similarly, my roommate, Tangiah, can barely convince people that she is, in fact, American, that no, neither she nor her parents were born in Africa, and that no, she cannot say from where her ancestors left the continent, because such is the nature of African American history.  In a painful interaction, Tangi's coworker once asked her: "Why isn't your hair silky like mine?" How do you explain to someone that a question that seems so innocuous to them is very hurtful to us? Tangi eventually did tell the woman that she was hurt by the comment, giving Tangi a sense of relief and allowing her to let go, but the truth is that part of the issue is the frequency with which comments are made, both of a kind and a hurtful nature.

Sometimes I just feel like an alien here: when I speak two words of Hindi and people congratulate me like I was awarded a Nobel Prize, when I am afraid to cross a street that children fearlessly dive into, when my coworkers sit and gossip and laugh together and I pretend to have a clue what they're discussing, when I look around the lunch table and am the only one not eating curry, using the roti (bread) to sop up the yellow sauce, the only one whose food the other teachers never want to share.  But there's also a way in which I have never felt so welcome to a place I have never been.  Like when my students offered to walk me to the metro station on my first day, telling me it was on their way when it was in no way convenient.  Or when, also on my first day at school, another teacher gave me the spoon she was literally in the middle of eating with because I didn't have one.  Then there's the million times a day my students form a crowd around me, each wanting a hand shake or a high five or a hug from me. There's the boundless curiosity about my life, both here and in the US, which no amount of answered questions seems to satisfy.

A teacher and friend I knew in Utah, Alan, a big, stocky guy about 6'4" tall, used to joke with us when we commented about his height.  "Why you always gotta make it about body image?" he would say.  It was ironic and funny, considering that he was addressing a group of self-conscious teenaged girls. I often feel like saying that phrase in response to the comments I get. Yet I realize that the one making it about body image is me. They are simply making observations they believe to be factually true, whether it's that I look nice or that I look like a fatty.  I have to get over it, and find a way to appreciate the comment or concern without taking it too seriously for my own good. It's a journey, man.

Shimla, or How We Learned to Defend Ourselves

As we teeter tottered up the mountain and motion-sick Hannah tried desperately not to throw up our nutritious breakfast of cake, oreos and potato chips, the temperature dropped as we wound our way up the Himalayas.  At one point we sat in traffic for more than 15 minutes without moving.  All the other passengers on the un-airconditioned bus crept forward to see what was causing the holdup.  After they all sat down and we were still motionless, Hannah and I stood up to see two drivers of cars that had been waiting in the traffic had gotten into a fender bender and were starting to fistfight. As they were pulled apart, we laughed and waited patiently to move on.  When we finally went forward, we saw that what had happened was a bus going in the opposite direction had broken down and all of the cars going against us had moved into our lane, making it impossible for anyone in our land to advance.  In any case, we were eventually on our way again and by the time we reached Shimla, we were starving and so grateful to be on solid ground.  We checked into a hotel from the guidebook, put down our stuff, and headed straight to the town's main street in search of Cafe del Sol, a restaurant recommended by the Lonely Planet for its variety of foreign food, including Mexican! Finding it sooner than we hoped, we ordered a burrito and nachos and a quesadilla, and, let me tell you, I don't think I've ever enjoyed a tortilla more in my life.

Happy to be at Cafe del Sol!

We spent the rest of the day wandering the streets, going to the Tibetan Refugees' Market, full of brand knockoffs, going in and out of little shops on the main street, admiring the beautiful hand work on pashmina shawls and salwar kameez, we retired early after our day of traveling and meandering, enjoying a beer in the comfort of our hotel room and passing out by 9:30.

We woke up the next morning at 8:00, stopping first at the nearby travel agent and buying tickets for the evening bus to Dehra Dun, from which we would continue on to another hill station, Mussoorie. From there we walked a few kilometers, including several steep, uphill climbs, eventually reaching a small art museum containing beautiful relics of India dating from several thousand years ago to the present. It was a diverse array of art and we really enjoyed ourselves.  We had thought of continuing on to the recommended Viceregal Lodge, a historic building known for having been the place where the treaty for Partition was signed.  However, when a man, (who turned out to be from Malviya Nagar N-Block!) whom we asked for directions pointed to a grey building on another mountain, we gave up and decided to walk to another recommended spot, called the Glen.

Retracing our steps, we returned to a fork in the road with a sign pointing to the Glen and headed downhill.  The walk was lovely, despite being on a paved road, with foliage so green it looked like it had been painted.  Every so often the trees would open up, revealing the misty valley below, and, occasionally, the meadow/cricket field/helipad called Annadale.  After a while, we noticed that a young guy who appeared about 18 or 19 was walking not too far behind us, but being that there aren't too many actual trails in the area, we didn't think anything of it, assuming he was headed to the same place we were or somewhere near it.  Seeing that he seemed to know where he was going, I asked if he knew where the Glen was, and he said it wasn't far, pointing to a footpath just up ahead.  At this point we had been walking downhill for over an hour and I was seriously concerned about my physical ability to climb back up the mountain, considering the effects of the altitude on my breathing and my general complete lack of any type of fitness. We started down the footpath, which opened into a clearing, and saw a (clearly homemade) sign that said "the Glen" and pointed left.  Still having no idea what this "Glen" actually was, Hannah again asked the guy whether we were far, and whether there was a road at the bottom from which we could find a lift back up.  He said that the only way back up was the way we came, and that it wasn't too much further.  As we continued our descent and the path went deeper into the woods, the guy behind us started to walk with us, at first asking the questions we always get of "where are you from?" and, to Hannah, "how do you speak such good Hindi?" We answered him as tersely as possible, and soon he was creeping us out with questions like "what hotel are you staying in?" After about five or ten minutes of us trying to ignore him, he said something to Hannah in Hindi that made her stop in her tracks.  I had no idea what he'd said but I saw Hannah's face and tone change completely, as she said words like jao (go away) and got in his face.  He shook his head and pointed in the direction we were headed in, at which point Hannah turned around and headed back the way we came.  I followed her and after a second, she stopped, overwhelmed and upset.  She finally related that he had blatantly propositioned her, and had refused to turn around, insisting that he wanted to continue his walk. We practically ran up the hill, as Hannah especially was very freaked out by the whole experience.  It's not that anything would have happened--there were two of us and one scrawny him, but to be in such an isolated place and have your surroundings and sense of safety invaded like that was shocking and disturbing. When we got to the main road, we stod and waited for one of the many taxis and tour vans we had seen on the road coming down, and as we stood waiting, Hannah glimpsed the creep hiding behind a tree, watching us; he must have taken a shortcut back up to the road.  By the grace of God, an SUV full of women appeared after only a minute or two and Hannah jumped into the road to stop it and were quickly motioned to pile in.  No sooner did we close the door of the car did Hannah burst into tears, so relieved to be in a car moving away from that place and that guy, and overwhelmed by how scared she had been.  I think the people in the car were taken aback by Hannah's reaction, saying things like "it's no problem," and "it's no big deal." But it felt like a big deal to us, and Hannah in particular felt extremely invalidated and upset by this response that it was nothing to fret over.  When we got out of the car at the top of the mountain, we felt a need to tell someone in uniform about what had happened, and the first such person we saw was a military guy stationed in the nearby base.  When Hannah told him what had happened, he smiled and shook his head.  "For this, you're upset?" he said.  Hannah started crying all over again, dismayed all over again at his indifference.  "Was he your friend?" he asked. "NO!" we yelled. "We have never seen him in our lives before!" I was so mad by his complete lack of empathy upon seeing how visibly upset Hannah was about what I consider a very legitimate trespass.  Frustrated by my limited ability to communicate due to the language barrier, I asked if he spoke English and he nodded. "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??!" I yelled.  What I really wanted to do was push him or slap him to see if he would wake up from his alternate reality where propositioning young girls for sex in an isolated place in the middle of the day is acceptable, but I settled for giving him a lecture in English that he in no way understood.  "This town makes a ton of money off of tourism," I said.  "We are two foreigners here, spending our money and patronizing this town, telling you that we felt very threatened while seeing one of the town's major tourist attractions, and you're saying that it doesn't matter.  How is that OK to you?" In retrospect, this soldier was absolutely the wrong person to approach; he had no prerogative to help us, and it really wasn't his duty to help us out, not that there was really anything he could do (or even that we especially wanted him to do!). But when you see that a person is upset, even if it is about something you don't particularly care about or think is important, how can you treat them with so little empathy? His reponse, or lack thereof, made the experience all the more unsettling, as it was such a stark example of how low a priority women's safety is here for so many.

We made our way back to our hotel, where we told the travel agent, that we had gotten to know a little, what had happened. He was very sympathetic and agreed that we had every right to be upset. Days later, when I relayed the ordeal to my mom, she pointed out the problematic nature of our needing external validation of our experience.  Hannah and I are two bold, sassy and smart college graduates, in India on a prestigious government grant as ad hoc cultural ambassadors.  We have written theses, won awards, and each have stable support systems at home, not to mention each other, to back us up and be there for us.  Why, then, did we need strangers in Shimla to confirm what we knew for a fact to be true: that our safety was involuntarily compromised and a creepy, stupid kid had objectified us to the point that he felt it was OK to defy major social norms and presume he could treat us in such a disrespectful and invading manner.  Part of the need to tell an authority certainly comes from in ingrained notion that police, despite corruption and shortcomings, are generally there to protect us from harm; that the State monopoly on violence is justified because the State will defend us.  Not so in India, and often in the US. Even in Delhi, there is no real emergency 911-type number which you can call and receive immediate assistance. During our Fulbright orientation in Delhi, we were told by the US Embassy representative in charge of all Embassy security-related matters that the police were not whom we should call in an emergency.  He said it was important to know someone in our neighborhood, whether a landlord or kindly neighbor, that would be able to assist and guide us if something should happen. And of course we both knew all of these things, the cultural differences, the untrustworthy authorities, but in that moment, what we sought was some kind of official stamp of approval that yes, we had been justified in being freaked out and yes, we had every right to be hurt and angry at having our walk ruined by that arrogant asshole.

Determined not to let this incident ruin our day, we decided to eat our feelings (at Cafe del Sol...again) and engage in some retail therapy before heading up to see Jakhoo Temple.  Lunch, followed by ice cream for Hannah and cake for me, was delicious, and we bought some beautiful clothes at the nearby market.  As it started to rain, we headed to a taxi stand to take us up to the temple, famous for its 180 foot tall statue of Hanuman, the monkey god to which the temple is dedicated.  Emerging from the cab in the pouring rain, the first thing we saw were monkeys. EVERYWHERE. The sand-colored Rhesus monkeys had been visible all over Shimla, but suddenly it seemed like we had happened on a monkey convention of sorts, and we understood why the guide book had recommended renting a stick to ward them off.  We went in the small temple at the food of the hill, across from the main temple, leaving our shoes in the little cage outside and latching the door to prevent the monkeys from stealing them.  Literally.  As we walked in, an unfortunate man was furiously trying to lure down a monkey from the eaves who had stolen his flip flop when he failed to lock it in the joote ghar, or little cage for placing your shoes when you go in the temple.  

The offending monkey with his loot

By the time we came out of the temple, the offending monkey was sitting all the way on the edge of the rafters, chewing happily on his new flip flop and gazing contentedly at the increasingly disgruntled one-shoed man, who was now cursing profusely and pretending to walk away, saying, "Tata!" We laughed and laughed, a relief after the morning's events, and then Hannah asserted that there was "no way in hell" she was going up to the temple "unprotected," and we shelled out 5 rupees each for some sticks. At this point it was raining hard, and many monkeys were seeking shelter under the walkway leading up the hill to the temple.  As they approached us, we shook our sticks and alternated between yelling and laughing, fending them off and stopping to catch our breath.  The temple was cool, and it was funny how the temple devoted to a monkey god would be so crowded with actual monkeys. The rain caused the structures to be encased in a thick, swiftly moving fog, so that our views constantly changed and images in the distance were appearing and disappearing all the time.  The sound of the rain, the low volume of people, the smell of the pine forest around us lent to a sense of magic, and we left the temple feeling empowered by our sticks, weapons against thieving monkeys and all things evil.

We emerge victorious! Thanks, sticks!

The rain had stopped by the time the taxi took us down the mountain, and we slowly made our way back to the hotel, stopping for coffee and getting sandwiches to eat on the bus.  We collected our stuff and wound down through the old market, asking every other person for directions to the old bus terminal, from which we would get a local bus to take us to the new bus terminal where we would board our bus to Dehra Dun via Chandigarh.  Hannah and I got on the local bus, which was pretty crowded when we got on, and stood on the stairs to lean the wait of our bags on the rail.  as SOON as the bus started moving, literally 20-30 more people jumped on the bus before I could get out of the way, nearly every one stepping on my feet and ungraciously pushing against my face. The only advantage was being by the door, so I could stick my face out the window and not smell the aroma of 378946247678 people crammed into such a small space.  After a fair bit of running around, we found the right bus and took our seats.  The first few minutes of the journey were fine, as we left Shimla and started down the mountain road towards Chandigarh.  But it soon became clear that the ride that had been so scenic, if rocky, on the way up during the day would be dizzying and pitch dark on the way down.  Prone to car sickness, Hannah was soon writhing with nausea, feeling claustrophobic and trapped when the man in front of her leaned his seat all the way back so he was practically in her lap. She felt better at the rest stops and made it over three hours on the bus before her stomach succumbed and she vomited into a plastic bag I held for her, which dripped all over both of us.  She felt terrible for puking on me, but I assured her that it was no big deal, and that she wasn't the first person to ever throw up on me (thanks, Aileen!). Hannah was not a happy camper, and I felt terrible that there was nothing we could do but wait it out.  As all of this was going on, the bus was stalling with more and more frequency, often jerking forward five or six times after every time it braked.  We reached Chandigarh after five hours, about halfway to Dehra Dun, and people got off the bus to stretch their legs and use the bathroom.  I saw that there was a crowd of guys standing around the front of the bus peering at the hood, looking into what I assume was the cause of all the stalling.  I thought nothing of it, but after ten or fifteen minutes, instead of seeing people get back on the bus, passengers were collecting their bags and getting off, and it soon became clear that this bus wasn't going anywhere any time soon.  Having left Shimla at 8:00 PM, it was now 2:00 in the morning, and people around us were saying the bus company may send another bus.  I rolled my eyes and saw that many of the people from our bus were running towards a newly arrived bus, un-airconditioned and so packed with Indian men that limbs seemed to stick out of windows in every direction.  After consulting with Hannah, we made an executive decision to give up on Mussoorie, ask for our money back, get a room in a nice hotel and go home the next day.  When another bus pulled up, as rickety and packed as the first, the bus agent offered us a seat on it.  "What about all these people, don't they need seats too?" Hannah asked, gesturing to the ring of men standing around watching the interaction. "No," he responded, "they're just here to look at you." Ahhhh okay, all clear. We quickly gave up on getting our $10 back, got in an auto and, after rejecting the roach motel the driver tried to take us to, pulled up to the Sunbeam Hotel, a vision of paradise.  As we showered and delighted in our air conditioned palace, we realized how grateful we were to not be on the bus, to be comfortable, that the bus broke down in the largest city on the route, a place we were already familiar with.

Happy in our hotel

We slept until 2 the next day, collected out things and headed out to get a train ticket.  The travel agent we came across informed us that he could not book us a ticket, as the train was to leave in less than four hours and the bookings close four hours before departure; we would have to go to the station and buy it in person.  We headed for the train station, praying for the luck to obtain precious tickets and get back to Delhi that day.  We walked up to the ticket booth, waiting patiently behind the long lines, when a glorious angel in the form of a station agent came and pulled Hannah out of the line.  Not sure of where she was going, I stayed in line, and then found her ten minutes later, holding to tickets for the 4:20 train to Delhi and beaming from our good fortune. The agent, seeing she was foreign, had taken her to the back and sold her tickets then and there.  She paid 136 rupees for two tickets (about $2.50), less than what we had paid to take an auto from the hotel to the station.  They were for "general boarding," the last car in the train reserved for last minute tickets and generally occupied by men who were poor. But the agent told us to sit in the Sleeper class and pay the conductor the difference in fare when he came around.  We sat in an empty berth, from which I yelled at several men who tried to take our picture, and when the train started moving, we couldn't believe our incredible luck.  Finally!  

The journey was uneventful and lovely, passing through the farmland of Punjab and Haryana, villages and towns and orchards.  We watched as day turned into night, as men played cards and children fell asleep on their mothers' laps, as chai wallas and snack vendors and tchotchke hawkers and eunuchs collecting money for blessings passed through the train's aisles at each stop.  Hannah and I listened to music, pausing every once in a while to chat, reflect on the past few days, as the world around us passed us by. We arrived at our apartment around 10PM, dusty, exhausted and full of stories and relief to be home. Over the previous five days, we learned that sometimes a stick is a good thing to have, that good food and solid sleep can be an amazing cure, and that when you travel in India, you often have to just throw up your hands and say, "plans, schmans." Despite many trials and tribulations, our trip was overall a beautiful adventure that I will not soon forget.

Chandigarh

Our journey began at the Inter-State Bus Terminal at Kashmere Gate in Delhi.  Our bus was due to leave at 5:40, and we knew that we were cutting it close time-wise. Emerging from the metro at 5:30, we made our way towards where we thought we needed to be, arriving in the bus terminal and asking around to try to find the right bus.  We were directed from one bay to another, ultimately realizing that our bus had already begun to exit the terminal.  Out of the corner of my eye, I recognized the company name on the side of a bus located feet from the exit gate. Hannah and I ran towards it, shouting, and some guys knocked on the door of the bus as it was moving to stop and let us on.  We climbed aboard, gasping for breath, and sat where there were seats, in the back, in front of a man pouring whiskey into his coke bottle.  So relieved to have caught the bus, we should have known that this was the start of a crazy few days.

From the bus station we found an auto to take us to the hotel where we had a reservation and woke up the next morning excited about celebrating Independence Day in Chandigarh.  An unusual city for India, Chandigarh is a planned city that was built in the 1950's and designed by French architect Le Corbusier. The city was built to be the capital of the state of Punjab, after the original capital, Lahore, became part of Pakistan as part of Partition.  It's pretty spread out as a city, making it hard to walk all over, but fortunately there were lots of autos.  Unfortunately, the small number of tourists in the city made it super hard to get a fair price from the auto wallas, who consistently overcharged us.

Paranthariffic breakfast

Our day began with paranthas: flat, fried bread made from potatoes.  A traditional breakfast item, these paranthas were spicy, greasy and delicious, paired nicely with plain curd (like yogurt) and chai. The restaurant was a typical Punjabi dhaba, or local place with Punjabi food, and was full of people, many of whom stared at us the entire time we ate.  After stopping at a bag walla to buy straps for the top of my backpack so Hannah could use it as a day pack, we got in an auto headed toward the Nek Chand Fantasy Rock Garden. 

The auto walla, however, had plans of his own, and dropped us off at the manmade Sukhna Lake, created as part of Le Corbusier's vision of the city.  We walked around the lake for a while and then walked along the side of the road for about 20 minutes to reach the garden. Nek Chand was a Punjabi road inspector who moved to Chandigarh during Partition, as his home of Gardaspur ended up in Pakistan when the borders were drawn.  The story goes that he was struck by the amount of waste generated as  people left their homes and moved across the borders of the new nations during Partition.   With no formal training as an artist, he began collecting the debris and junk left behind and creating massive sculptures on several acres of government land.  When the city eventually discovered his project, its demolition was imminent, until Chand got public opinion on his side and the site was designated a public park, allotting him a salary and employees.  Being that we were visiting on Independence Day, everyone had the day off and the park was crowded with people--families, couples, girl scouts and teenagers.  I took a ton of pictures, which can be seen in the album which you can see via the posted link. 

Swings! Notice the texture of the columns made by
 filling sacks with concrete.

Chand used very innovated techniques to create unusual effects, such as filling sacks with concrete to create walls that have the texture of lumpy pillows, and using recycled glass to color the saris of his sculpted women.  My favorite part of the park was an area with huge arches,  above which stood large horses covered in white tile, and between which where huge swings, obviously made for adults.  Nearly every swing was occupied, sometimes by several people at once, and you could hear the laughter and cries of delight echoing across the courtyard. 

After the rock garden we headed into the main downtown shopping area, had a quick lunch of rolls on the street, and spent an hour in an air-conditioned cafe just resting.  We decided to head towards the museums, located in a cluster not far from the city center.  We got in an auto and agreed to pay 40 rupees.  As we approached the museums, we saw that they were closed for Independence Day, and decided to head to the bougainvillea garden, one of several gardens incorporated into Le Corbusier's master plan of the modern city.  When we got out of the auto, the auto walla demanded 80 rupees, double what we had agreed upon!  Granted, he did take us farther and I was going to give him about 20 extra, but double?! This was outrageous.  He was so insistent and refused to take any money if it wasn't what he felt he deserved.  After arguing with him for like 15 minutes, Hannah said he looked like he was about to cry and we gave him 70. Keep in mind that this has never happened to me in India, where a driver demands more than we initially agreed upon; the  unwritten code with auto wallas, at least in Delhi, is very clear in that what you agree on initially is what goes, and if you change your mind about the destination, the driver says something then and there about more money.  We walked around the garden for a while--it was very lovely despite the fact that not much was blooming.  Throughout our time in Chandigarh, we were impressed by how clean and well-kept the city was, and the garden was no exception. It was fairly empty, with a few couples here and there, and we just enjoyed the silence and peace.  At one point, a girl came up to Hannah to beg.  Hannah declined, in Hindi, and the little girl muttered "danda kha!" (eat dick!) as she walked away. Not even ten minutes later, as Hannah and I sat on a bench, she approached us again, this time asking me.  Hannah reminded her of the rude parting words she had shared just moments ago, and the girl claimed she had no idea what Hannah was talking about.  "Those are very bad words!" she said in Hindi.  We spoke with her for a while and eventually went on our way.

When we left the garden we decided to visit a temple called Mansa Devi,  a little outside of the city in a town called Panchkula.  It wasn't in the guide book, but everyone Hannah had spoken to at her school had recommended she see it, so away in the auto we went.  Twenty minutes later, we emerged in a small market with stalls selling all kinds of accoutrements used for prayer.  An important element in visiting Hindu temples is prashad, basically an offering of food--usually puffed rice or nuts--which you have blessed by the temple holy man, give a little bit to the god, and eat the rest yourself.  People often will bring a whole bunch of prashad that they have blessed and then take home to put on their own altars and to savor throughout the week or share with friends, family and coworkers. Stalls also sold the powdered vermilion, placed in the part of women's hair to show that they are married, or mixed with water and dabbed on the forehead. There were framed pictures of all different gods, incense holders, marigolds, and a variety of sizes of red fabric covered in gold tinsel, used on altars and to leave in the temple.  We took off our shoes and climbed the marble steps, where we waited on line, the only non-Indians, to ring the bell and enter the temple.  Bells are located at the entrance to each temple, as a way to "wake up" the gods and alert them of your presence.  When we got to the front, where the idols were, we rang a second set of bells and the monk asked if we had prashad.  I said no and he handed me tiny manila envelopes filled with sugar and cardamom, as well as a large piece of the red fabric with gold tinsel. When I asked what I should do with it, the man behind me said I should keep it in my house, that it's a nice thing to have.  

We walked up to another temple just up the hill, nicer than the first, and made even more lovely by the setting sun.  We saw the temple and then sat on the warm marble of the courtyard for a while, just taking in the sights, watching young boys race each other up and down, and entertaining the few families that asked us to hold their babies while they took our picture. I really have no idea why people want this, a picture of random foreign strangers holding their babies, but who am I to know?  There was an enormous tree with hundreds of the red-with-tinsel squares tied on its limbs, giving it the appearance of strange organic fringes on the bottom of the foliage.  As we made our way back down we were swarmed with very young girls, between the ages of five and eleven, begging and tugging at our clothing to give them money.  Upon approaching the security guard at the first temple as we descended, he took off running after them, shaking his giant bamboo stick and eventually throwing it at them as he chased.  We also witnessed amateur, makeshift tattoo artists, inking boys that looked about 13 with electric needles that looked homemade.  

Hepatitis, anyone?

We took the bus back to Chandigarh, and enjoyed a meal at the Indian Coffee House, a co-op run by its workers, packed with locals and waiters dressed in traditional white uniforms.  

Inside the Indian Coffee House

After dinner, we strolled around downtown, enjoying being part of the crowd of people celebrating Independence Day and just enjoying the mild evening weather. Weary and worn, we found an auto to take us back to the hotel in Sector 42. (The areas of the city are called "sectors," making me feel like I was in Star Trek).  We agreed to pay 70 rupees, a price we knew was high for the distance we were going, but not caring to continue arguing.  As we neared the hotel, the auto walla turned around and stated that he had only agreed to take us to the market in Sector 42, and that if we wanted him to take us to our hotel it would take us another 40 rupees. Shocked, we told him that would not be happening, and insisted he drive us to the hotel, another 100 feet beyond where he claimed we had asked to go for 70 rupees.  When we got to the hotel, I gave him 70 and he started yelling and ranting that we had cheated him, that we owed him more money, blahblahblahblahblah.  Like the other guy, he refused to take our money if it wasn't the amount he wanted, so we gave it to the hotel workers that came out when they heard him yelling and just went upstairs, where we leaned over the balcony to listen to the commotion.  The guys from the hotel agreed that even 70 was overpaying, and he eventually drove off in a huff. Oh, well.

We awoke early the next morning to take the bus to Kalka, in which we would board a toy train to Shimla, a hill station in the eastern part of the state of Himachal Pradesh, in the Himalayas.  Upon arriving at the bus station, I ran in to the dhaba cum convenience store to get something for breakfast, while Hannah made sure the bus didn't leave without me.  I walked into the store and realized that I was limited to three food options: potato chips, samosas and cake.  

Hannah eats her breakfast of champions

As I walked back to the bus, Hannah took one look at what was in my hands and went: "Is that...cake??" Indeed, I chose cake as the lesser of three evils at 9AM, and boy, was it delicious.  Little did we know that it would be the only food we would eat until 3PM that afternoon!  When we got to Kalka, we were promptly informed that the train to Shimla was not running, and onto another bus we went, winding through the Himalayas and holding on for dear life as we we jerked and jostled up the mountain at what felt like a ridiculously fast speed, (considering we were barely hovering over the edge of a cliff). 

For the epic conclusion to our journey, tune in to the next post! (read: I am too lazy to finish writing right now and want you to not have to wait so long to read this and also don't want to make you read something 4728647286 pages long). If you really canNOT wait, I would encourage you to read Hannah's blog, because a) she is awesome, as is her blog, and b) we were on the same trip! 

Sending much love from Mother India,

xoxox

Chandigarh and Shimla

After an eventful few days, Hannah and I have returned to Delhi.  I will write about our trip soon, but in the mean time, here is a link to my photos, which are annotated as usual.
Enjoy!
xox

Independence Day Assembly

One last thing before I go-- here are some pictures from the independence day assembly this morning for your perusal/enjoyment.

Sea of children

Second grade class! Note mini Gandhi, and that's Nehru all in white.  Adorable!

Me and Rishabh.  Isn't he the cutest?!

Storm Before the Calm

Well, faithful readers, start planning your activities for the five extra minutes of free time you'll have this week, as I am leaving Delhi for six days and will probably be off the grid for all or most of that time, and will therefore not be posting.  Hannah and I leave tomorrow for Chandigarh, a city a few hours north of here, which happens to be the capital of two states--Haryana and Punjab.  From there we will head to the hill station of Shimla, where the British Raj used to move their capital to in the summer when Calcutta and then Delhi was too hot.  After a few days there we will go to another hill station called Mussoorie, (not Missouri, though that was confusing to me at first), and depart back to Delhi from Dehra Dun. We have Wednesday off for Indian Independence Day (wahoo!) and Friday and Monday off for Eid al Fitr.  Man, do Indians love celebrating.  The traditional Independence Day activity is flying kites, and random stores all over the cities have been selling simple kites and string for the past few weeks. It's pretty wonderful to see children playing with actual objects like kites and tops and homemade paper boats, rather than the standard recreational diet of video games and virtual reality in the US.  There are video games here too, but kids of all ages and backgrounds seem to love just being outside, playing cricket and flying kites.  The Independence Day tradition, so I'm told, is to try to cut down other people's kites with your own, which seems to me like the easiest, fastest way to make a kid cry.  Hopefully I will be able to see some kite flying in Chandigarh!

School continues to chug along and is starting to go by more and more quickly. Last week I was pretty shaken up when some of the boys in my class were misbehaving and the gym teacher, also in charge of "discipline" entered the room after either hearing the commotion or seeing that I had sent kids outside.  The boys had been fooling around, throwing water on each other and not paying attention, as 13 year old boys are apt to do, but the gym teacher came in, asked the student monitor what happened, and proceeded to slap the shit out of five or six boys.  He pulled each one up by the ear to face him, slapped their faces two or three times and then hit them on the back.  At one point he was about to hit a student who hadn't been involved and the rest of the class cried out "No! Not him!" and so he was spared.  Then the gym teacher (whose name I don't know, can you tell?) smiled at me as he walked out of the room, as if to say "you're welcome." I felt so uncomfortable and shocked, even though I had been warned this would likely happen.  Being made aware of it ahead of time doesn't prepare you to witness a grown man physically assaulting children in front of their peers.  That day in our English Language Teaching seminar with the other Fulbrighters, I totally broke down and cried.  Today I was doing an activity with the kids, having them act out verbs like eating, sitting, standing, running, jumping.  When they got a little loud, a senior teacher who seems to function like a vice principal came into the class and screamed at them, made them move their desks around causing the most earsplitting screeching as the table legs scraped across the hard linoleum.  He slapped a kid across the face who had been helpful to me earlier in translating for kids who didn't understand what I'd said and quieting students.  After the teacher left I apologized to the students for letting them get so loud...I know they are used to being treated like this by adults, but I don't want any part of it, and I am struggling to distance myself from that behavior and institution while maintaining the respect of both the kids and the staff.

I'm definitely getting better at controlling the class, little by little, despite the massive language barrier. It's super hard, though, like when a child misbehaves and I want them to know that I would like them to stay in my class, that I don't want to send them out, that I value their contributions.  Getting used the the CONSTANT ma'am-ing is tough, too.  Even when they raise their hands, they do so while standing up and yelling--yelling--Ma'am!Ma'am!Ma'am! They also get so out of control so quickly; not even Clear View could have prepared me for it.  I tried teaching the Hokey Pokey the other day and the "turn yourself about" part cause such an inordinate amount of chaos, I had to stop the activity. In general, working at Clear View has been super helpful in preparing me for the roller coaster of feeling deeply satisfied with my work and the next moment deeply inadequate.  I miss the support of working with a team and having the time and space to build relationships with students and help them achieve their potential.  It's funny because my experience at Clear View has affected my perspective such that most of my favorite students here are the naughty ones, the boys who I constantly see sent out of other teachers' classes, whose lack of effort in class and humor and bravado mask all the insecurities of adolescent boyhood.  My favorite kid might be Rishabh, an 8th grader who looks about 9, with ears that stick straight out of his head an impish grin, and (I swear!) a twinkle in his eye.  I always see him standing outside his classroom when I walk around the school, having been kicked out for talking or being idle or fighting.  He knows I think he's awesome because I am always so happy to see him, and I know he likes me because he gives me that loopy grin and really tries to speak English to me, despite his very limited level of comprehension and speaking ability.  Today in class he moved on his own to sit towards the front of the class (next to a girl! ew!) because his neighbors at his seat were talking and he couldn't hear me and wanted to participate.  He wrote a paragraph about cricket in the most poorly constructed grammar I may ever see, but I was so proud of him I just kept telling him how great it was, and he even volunteered to read it to the class!  I know I need to correct their work and tell them what they're doing wrong, but it feels like such a privilege to me to be able to have these kids without any strings attached in terms of having to grade or examine them, that I really want to focus on just building up their confidence and making them feel OK about whatever level they're at.  There is so much emphasis here on quantitive success and there are so many children in each class and so few teachers that it seems like the kids that struggle or lack internal motivation are given up on pretty easily, as there are so many who are motivated and perform better that it seems logical to direct the precious resources towards them.  At the end of the day, I would rather them feel comfortable speaking English poorly than say only perfect sentences, but so rarely that they cannot carry even a simple conversation.  As it is, I think it's hard for teachers also to get out of the mind frame of rewarding those who can achieve at the expense of those who can't.  There's less of the sense we have in the US that a kid can Do Anything! Follow Their Dreams! Choose Their Destiny!  Roles are ridiculously specific and well-defined, and I think it's pretty hard for people--kids and adults alike--to think or dream on the periphery of these set options.  Please do not mistake this observation for a judgement but rather as a commentary on why it's difficult to get kids to have confidence in themselves when it comes to doing or trying something not evaluated numerically.

Every day at school brings new adventures, sometimes good and sometimes terrifying and sometimes so unpleasant or sweet or confusing.  I get laughed at a lot, my Hindi is brutally mocked by the kids, and I scared the bejesus out of an 8th grade class today when I recounted the biblical story of my name, tent spike hammered into head and all. If any of you were worried about me getting a big ego over here, just picture me sweating my patooties off, with pit stains the size of dinner plates and chalk all over my salwar kameez (read: genie pants with long tunic shirt), standing in front of a class of 35 14-year-olds, doing the hokey pokey and getting laughed at and aped when I try in vain to say "please be quiet Anubhav/Taranjeet/Nikhil/Gaurav/Abhishek/Rithik/Geetanjali/whatever other name I can't pronounce. Show some respect to me and your classmates."

Wish me luck on my next adventure...and my upcoming trip!:)
Sending much love from Mother India....
xoxox