Where's the Road?

18 hours on a bus with no door+24 hours in a monsoon-drenched city=interesting weekend

My flatmate Lothar and I had to get out of dodge this weekend. So we headed to Trichy, on a bus, down a road that is sooo far from being paved all the way through. Trichy is supposed to be the less touristy version of Madurai. Lothar and I enjoyed Madurai immensely so why not head to Trichy? Yea...this is one where you shouldn't believe Lonely Planet, Trichy has nothing on Madurai except maybe a sweeter Bazaar.

Interesting Notes and Lessons Learned from the Weekend:

I definitely encourage everyone traveling in a foreign country to try wearing a shirt with a very famous native celeberity on it for a day. Everyone should try wearing a black muscle shirt with a big moustached famous face on it (with the words "The Boss" across it too). It was the first time a bus driver blew a whistle at me...to let everyone on the bus know how cool my shirt was...heck yes...

Don't sit in the front seat of a bus if it looks like the door may fall off soon. It definitely will fall off and it definitely will monsoon rain all over your ass for 9 hours straight

Consider carrying an extra water bottle for when your auto driver sprays petrol in his eyes in the middle of flooded and deserted Chennai at 1AM. Not sure how he managed to spray petrol in his eye but our trusty aquafina saved the day for sure.

Don't assume that just because you left G.N. Chetty Road slightly damp and full of garbage doesn't mean you won't return to G.N. Chetty River, a 3 foot deep swiftly flowing sewage-filled stream where the street once was.

Accept Indian sweets from sweet old ladies on the bus, not only will it restore your faith in finding the best of humanity in all cultures, but such sweets are also usually really really freakin' good (especially when wet and cold and hungry)

Eat the Chicken Tandoori Masala at Banana Leaf, then take home the leftovers for breakfast, you won't be disappointed at either meal.

Look VERY CAREFULLY for signs saying No non-Hindus Allowed. Just because its a tiny footnote on the bottom of a very poorly-placed sign doesn't mean you won't scare a lot of people by accidently crossing the threshold. Luckily people seemed fairly understanding, which I think means it must happen a lot, which I think means maybe they need to invest in a different sign.

Yea, I think that is about it but did I mention its cold (read 70 degrees) in Chennai?!?!? Must find a sweatshirt and mittens...

Culture Wars

I share a flat with a German, a Columbian, an Italian and a Brit. We get along fabulously and often spend our nights sitting around our plastic kitchen table talking and drinking tea in a perfect picture of cultural exchange and harmony.

But there is a war brewing. let me tell you.

Laura, our resident Italian is on a mission to improve her English. Most days we have at least a dozen conversations that procede something like "what is it when something is covered in water?" "wet", "white?" "no, wet" "oh wep?" "no wet" "ohh wat!" "no, wet" and it goes on...(The acoustics aren't so great in our kitchen)

Unfortunately for Laura though she lives with not just one native English speaker but two-a Brit and an American who have very different ideas on what it means to pronounce things "correctly"

And so its on like donkey kong

Will Laura learn Anna the Brit's "pure and proper" version of English or my own "bastardized" mother tongue? (Anna's words not mine) We shall see but don't worry I'll be fighting hard for "Team America" and our bastardized English language...

A Matter of Degree

Until last night I was too lazy to try and figure out what the temperature here in celsius converts to in fahrenheit, and now that I know the truth, I'm kind of glad I waited so long to find out.

Apparently when they say its 35 degrees celsius here that means its actually 95 degrees fahrenheit...its amazing how much less you suffer and how much less you care when you have absolutely no context for your experience...its kind of sweet

Yoga

I think in the west, there tend to be a lot of misconceptions about the practice of Yoga. The difference between yoga in the US and yoga in India is absolutely hysterical. Its like as ironic as you can get as far as cultural constructions go.

In the US yoga teachers urge their students to let go and let flow. They reiterate constantly that yoga is not a competition, that it is an ancient Hindu practice meant to help one find and hold onto balance both physcially and spiritually. Many Americans in fact flock to Indian ashrams each year seeking inner peace and a better Tree Pose straight from the source.

Except here's the funny thing- almost no one in India does yoga. Most people don't even like to do yoga-aerobics classes are the choice exercise of those in society well fed enough to indulge in exercise and good health.

Perhaps even funnier, even among those who do teach and practice yoga the goal is not usually inner peace or anything so new age. In fact, the goal is....wait for it...to win the regional and national yoga competitions. That's right-the one physical activity we hold up as completely non-competitive in "the West", the one activity we revere as a way back to the simpler balanced ways of the East is actually a big competitive circus here in the place where Warrior One all got started.

Of course none of this means I'll stop going to my purely-Western constructed bikram and ashtanga classes when I get back to the States eventually-I like our noncompetitive style with whole quiet voice and floaty background music thing, but its funny to think about how backards we all are about the whole thing.

Keepin the Faith

Sometimes being here, speeding by slums, watching people make their beds on pieces of cardboard over awful-smelling, mosquito-infested ditches, seeing how the opulence of the upper class just does not translate into anything resembling dignity or three square meals a day for the rest of the population can make the immensity of "eradicating poverty" seem almost insurmontable.

Sometimes trying to come up with domestic violence recovery programs for my ngo and trying to live with the knowledge that the maid's husband beats her and burns her with cigarrette butts would seem almost absurd if it wasn't so fucking awful. Most days I feel like I'm trying but failing to make any difference.

Most days I think everyone here, Indian and foreign ignores as much as they can just to get through the day. Its a tempting way to deal, especially when the problems seem so big, the obstacles so insurmontable that is only logical to assume you will, ultimately, fail to help anybody.

Except that I can't actually ignore what happens here, what happens everywhere. I think one of the most important things I have learned thus far in India is actually an appreciation for difficult it will be to do what I have always planned on doing for the rest of my life, trying to make something change, at least somewhere, in a small way. Living here is finally giving me some perspective why the whole world isn't in the business of "development"-its freakin' hard man.

So this weekend, in search for inspiration, I found an old book that I should have read years ago. Banker to the Poor. Yunus doesn't sugarcoat the obstacles, or his luck in getting Grameen started and keeping it going and maybe that is why reading it is so awesome. It maybe be a little dated, a little controversial but if you want to read something that makes you (read: me) stop whining and start moving, its the book for you.

Violated

I should preface this blog by saying that, generally, going about my everyday business I get stared at, pointed at, and even if I frequent a coffee stand (a men-only place but damn the coffee is too good not to go) I only get some sly looks and comments. Its usually annoying but tolerable. Today, however, things got ugly

I was trying to pick up my laptop from the Service Center to send it to the US because my 4 month old laptop requires a $600 repair that can only be done for free under warrenty if I send it to the US. I'm wearing my usual Indian kurtis, I did the usual haggling, got an auto for a not great but decent price and go in. I should have known something was wrong by the laughing and the way the guy drove. Then he stopped for petrol.

It happens here that sometimes the driver will ask you to pay your fare at the petrol station if the driver doesn't have the money himself, which is why I handed the auto driver my 100rupee bill expecting to receive my 40 rupees in change after he finished getting gas. Most auto drivers will try to rip you off but generally they are pretty honest about it, only a few will actually steal or cheat you out of your money. Then it happened.

Leering into my face he reached into the back of the auto and grabbed my upper thigh Now while this might happen in the US in a bar perhaps, in India in the middle of the day, in a society where even husbands and wives don't even touch in public, being touched like this especially by a leering auto driver is akin to having someone shove their hand up your shirt in the US. It'd actually be like your taxi driver shoving his hand up your shirt, like its just that not right.

I didn't know what to do, he had my money so I took a little more leering and a few more attempts to touch me and prayed for my destination to come up quickly. I should have known he wouldn't give me my money, I should have known to jump out of the auto the second he touched me. In all the guidbooks on India it says if you scream and make a scene about someone assualting you, generally its a good way to get the dude to back off and to make people come running. Don't believe it. After he laughed and leered and tried to touch me again instead of giving me my money, I screamed, I swore, and of course no one came to my aide. In fact the men standing 15 feet away may have actually laughed as they stared. I didn't get my money back and the auto driver leered and laughed all the way around the corner.

Still shaking, I went to DHL where they told me they knew of no one in India who would ship my broken laptop to the United States. Great, assualted, cheated, cheated again (which is actually more of a daily occurence), and now with a broken laptop that no one will ship to the US for repair, not even DHL. India couldn't get much more awesome for me at this point. And then my purse ripped open on the street and I nearly burst into tears on the corner of G.N. Chetty Road

Over some tea and shortbread courtesy of my very awesome and very English roommate I have been attempting to gain back some perspective. Today I am definitely not so keen on India but I've also learned something about what it must be like for the women of India. They deal with shit like unwanted touching and assault most definitely a lot more than I do and do so in a society far more hostile to their struggles than the American one I left behind.

Let's Go To the Movies...

My laptop is potentially ruined forever after only 3 weeks in a country I'm fairly sure my warrenty doesn't cover. 3 weeks ago I would have been devestated, yesterday I merely rushed everyone off the phone so as to get my shit together and start figuring out this new mess.

In the haze of "oh shit this is a brand new laptop and I need it for work and its probably fried" I texted my flatmate Lothar who in his incredibly intuitive and German and efficient way rushed home with chocolate for me and suggested we all go out to a movie to take our minds off of things.

It was such a nice idea in theory. And then we all arrived at the cinema to watch 28 Weeks Later. Whoever says that is not a scary movie is lying or has no feelings, seriously. Anna and I nearly ripped my jacket in half trying to hide from the zombies and pondered what our chances of survival would be if the rage virus ever came to India. It took 3 episodes of Family Guy, another bar of chocolate, and some Earl Gray before we could bring ourselves to go to bed.

Despite all of these precautions, I still jumped into my bed mates' arms in the middle of a nightmare. I scared the shit out of her muttering how a trainee named Frances was a zombie but eventually she figured out what was going on and patted my arm before telling me to go back to bed. I was never very keen on having to share a bed here but there are definitely some advantages to sharing with a sweet and forgiving Italian like Laura...especially when you are watching horror movies in India

A Night Out in Chennai

Riding in an auto with two of my flat mates in a deserted Chennai at 11PM trying to reach an AIESECers going away party:

Lothar: Yea I got rabies shots because even though the official statistics say only 30,000 people in India die of rabies each year, apparently its closer to 300,000

Anna: Oh my God and there are so many dogs here!

Me: Yea but they all seems so nice so even if there are a lot I don't think that many actually have rabies, which is good since I don't have the vaccine

30 seconds later

All of Us in Unison (As a raving barking dog attempts to jump into the speeding auto): AHHHHHHH!

More Lessons From Chennai

My flat mates are now waiting for me to be trampled in the street by a deranged cow, after yet another mishap caused my travel companions and I to miss our train to Bangalore last night. (Auto driver yet again couldn't understand my donkey voice) All of this reminds me though of a story though that my Dad used to tell when I was a kid:

The Man's horse runs away from his farm and the neighbor says "ooh what bad luck" The Man replies,

"Good luck, bad luck, who knows"

The Man's horse than returns bringing with him a dozen other strong and beautiful horses and the neighbor says, "oh what good luck!" The Man replies,

"Good Luck, Bad luck, who knows"

Then the Man's son is working with the horses one day and is trampled and breaks his leg. The neighbor says, "oh what bad luck" and the Man replies,

"Good Luck, Bad luck, who knows"

The next day the army comes to take away all of the fit and healthy young men for war and the man's son can not go...

Good Luck Bad Luck Who knows, in the end what happens seems to matter less than what you make of it. And if you can laugh it off with your friends over some ice cream and some of Tamil Nadu's finest brews all the better.

Besides, if I hadn't missed my train to Bangalore last night, I might have never known what a mean game of poker I apparently can play...

Madurai

So I realized that in all my misadventures of the last week (which now include getting taken to the complete opposite side of the city because the auto driver could not understand my hoarse nonexistent voice-i don't really blame him though, I hardly understand my donkey voice either) I realized I never even mentioned my wonderful trip to Madurai.

Madurai is not a place many Western tourists go. Sure the forth most important temple in Hinduism is there but I mean there are like more temples than cows here in India (and that is saying something) so there is not much to attract the Western eye, except that it is singularly a fabulous city for anyone who likes to roam around for themselves.

Madurai is small, but not so small that you can't find what you need. It is actually full of Indian tourists visiting the temple and buying up loads of tailored saris and the like so its kind of fun because even though foreigners stick out, so too do the Indian tourists who are not from Madurai, its like we are all getting ripped off together! A word on Hinduism...I really liked being in a temple where within three feet of eachother one person is kneeling before Ganesh and one person is talking loudly into a cellphone and its all ok. I also petted an elephant in the temple but that was actually kind of sad.

The best part of the city, when comparing it to Chennai is that you can actually walk!!! You can walk all over the city and buy tons of street food or fruit or anything really and people actually say hi and smile!!! If Chennai is like New York where everyone sort of ignores each other to some extent, Madurai is like a small town that doesn't realize its actually a big city. I met so many sweet kids who wanted their pictures taken, so many nice adults who even if they don't say hi, will return your polite smile. Its amazing!!

I think the coolest thing about Madurai though is at sunset on a rooftop. Its a lot less polluted than Chennai and it smells more like clean hay than river shit. But as the sun goes down the best part happens, within one square mile of each other the beautiful puritan white mosques start their evening prayers almost in tandem with the huge, just completely overstimulating but awe-striking Hindu temples just down the street. Purple and green lights splay out of the twilight from the respective temples as the city hurries to worship, to eat, or maybe just to haggle with one last tailor...

Success?

Apparently getting a Affidavit of Fraud into your bank is a little more difficult in India than in the US. But it can be bizarrely entertaining....a look into the process:

Step 1: Find internet cafe at which to print affidavit form, ask for whereabouts of fax machine and receive the dreaded quick Indian bobble which signifies "I have no idea where in the world you will find a fax machine but I don't think your chances are good"

Step 2: Search the neighborhood coughing and dodging traffic for faxing place, find fax machine, start to fill out forms, realize the document must be notarized

Step 3: Call US UW Credit Union where I am assured any bank will notarize my form

Step 4: Go to bank and find out NO ONE at ANY bank in India will notarize my form, but I receive sketchy man's cellphone number from sympathetic teller

Step 5: Argue with 4 auto drivers, get stopped to have auto driver call sketchy man's cellphone, get charged 20 rupees for waiting in auto for sketchy man and when protesting the 20 rupee charge the auto driver pulls out his trump card: "Well don't you love Jesus?" as if that question will stop me dead in my bargaining tracks. End up having to pay 100 rupees

Step 6: Climb into the back of dodgy cellphone man's van, yes van at the end of a dead end road where my document is stamped and signed...for the price of 200 rupees...and I am in the back of a van....in the middle of no where...something tells me none of this is legal

Step 7: Set out again for fax machine, watch anxiously as husband and wife team argue over how to send a fax to US. Send up small prayer that they somehow stumble upon the right number

Step 8: Receive "ok transmission" sheet which I hope translates into "visa has received my forms" Pay another 120 rupees for the fax

Step 9: Stumble home in my cold-induced stupor to get back to work and continue knocking on wood that somehow, someway not only will visa receive my fax with my likely-illegitimate notarization and give me back the money from my stolen debit card...if India is anything it is most definitely surreal...

From the Bed of an Aspiring AIESEC Trainee

Today the head cold and sore throat and elephant-sized glands in my neck have been keeping down-much like the uw credit union server is-down that is.

I usually would be very patient with such an outage but when I have over $1,500 USD (not rupees, dollars) to dispute and I desperately need to print out and fax a fraudulent charges sheet and no one at visa or UW can understand how I wouldn't know my card was missing for three days (this is India people, cards are not used everyday and neither is internet) this little server outage is a little rough. If I didn't feel so lousy I'd have half a mind to stroll down to Laptop Zone down the street and give the manager there a lecture on how letting some bastard buy a laptop with an american credit card that says "see ID" on the back is not contributing positively to my image of Indian society. Of course I will never actually carry out this little fantasy scenario nor do I feel doing so would be at all productive but its something to think about as I lay in bed and try to work on my programs for pcvc.

A word on my bed as well, I actually share it. I share a bed with a lovely Italian girl, not just a room, an actual Indian sized double bed (Slightly smaller than the US version I think). She is lovely and so sweet and doesn't even mind when I crawl in under our mosquito net late at night and end up tearing half of it down. Sharing a bed isn't exactly ideal but its not that bad and actually quite cozy. It just really makes me wonder what @ Chennai does with all the money they make off us because for some reason sharing a bed in India is almost as expensive as having a room to one's self in Green Bay, Wisonsin...

As I read over this post I realize it is not exactly positive and in fact it probably makes it sound like India, or at least Chennai is actually quite shitty. While I won't say that I've fallen in love with Indian culture (I haven't and I'm not sure I ever will) I should point out that there is some essense of India that despite everything, despite the poverty, and the crazy development, despite the pollution and dirt, despite the corruption and class structure, there is something about India that is bigger than all of that. When I walk out to the street at night there is something wonderful about the hot and smelly night air and the dust swirling on the street that makes me understand why sooo many people have penned stories about India in tones of magic and mysticism. By day, India is a place where I get angry and frustrated and confused by things that seem so completely against my values and my ideals but by night I understand the phrase "Mother India" as I walk into the streets into a place where, for better or for worse, anything goes.

A Few Musings On India

For those out there who worried what a veggie-phobe like myself would do in vegetarian Southern India, no reason to fear. Right now I am finding Indian food to be the redeeming factor of this journey that makes it all worthwhile. From the fresh fruit juice on the street to the perfect (and I do mean perfect) Paneer Butter Masala served next door with piping hot naan, to the crack-like addictive mixture of piping hot cream, flavoring and coarse pure sugar that is served for 4 rupees and called coffee, its all good. In the face of everday challenges and the occasional over-the-top experience, yes indeed I think some days it all comes back to the food. After all, a country that comes up with such freakin' delicious cuisine must have some more secret charms I have yet to figure out.

I can not pretend to understand Indian culture yet, I experience it mostly as a blank wall of stares, carefully distant interactions, or in a mess of confusion for both me and the person I am trying to communicate with. It is a rare and refreshing experience here for a smile from me to be returned by a smile (especially among women although I don't know why) even rarer to be approached for no reason other than a curious introduction. But seriously, how those smiles and questions make my day. I'm pretty much in love with one of the old man guards at our building if only because he smiles and says hello when we meet. That might not sound like much but compared to either chest level stares, snickers, pointed looks away and condescending tones, it feels like Christmas, I think I have a lot more to understand about interactions here so maybe once I figure that out more people will smile and be friendly?

And speaking of Christmas, apparently October 5 was Christmas for one bastard in the T-Nagar area where I lost/had my debit card stolen. Not that you can't use a stolen card in the US but this dude seriously took my card (which states clearly "see id" has the word WISCONSIN on it and has my very un-Indian name all over it) and bought himself a new computer with it not a half a mile from where I live. Awesome. I am now $1500USD in the whole with no hope of using my bank account except online until I am back in the States and the bank wants to know why I wouldn't go report the matter to the police...


In other news I think I am a kid magnet and I kind of love it. Even without my camera out I keep having these wonderful half Tamil/half English exchanges with sweet little girls, in movie theaters, on the street, even in the Ghandiji Museum in Madurai. They are all pretty awesome.

Also saw my first Tamil film, Sivajti. Song and dance were pretty sweet but I was definitely a little weirded out by the way the demonized the woman police officer (whom here often work in police stations to combat domestic violence) and by an entire song and dance number extolling light skin over dark skin. She actually rejects a black man in the song in favor of the whiter man. Maybe I'm missing some subtleties that someone else could explain to me but it sort of freaked me out. In any case, highly entertaining and intriquing?

Today was a sort of important day for me on this Indian Odessy. I several times today looked at my surroundings and rather than immediately thinking "i wish I was elsewhere (aka home)" simply thought "oh today is a nice day" It could be argued that today was the first time that I did not wish to be anywhere else. Of course, if the people I miss from home were here things would be perfectly peachy but as far as matters of place and space go, today I was much closer to content than ever before.

I've only experienced this feeling once before in my short time here in India, but then, I was at a beach and if you can lie on a beach and wish you were somewhere else then there really must be something quite wrong with you

Movin On Up

I am writing this post from my kitchen table...in an apartment that has not only internet, but also hot water. I am sharing a bed (that does not give me bruises now) with the sweetest Italian girl in the world and I finally, finally got to have a real Indian meal this morning. A strike and Gandhi's birthday have left us all with a 3 day work week to be followed up by a weekend trip to Madurai. I leave for work soon to figure out when I actually work, when my work should actually be accomplished by, and perhaps whether or not they will remember to pay me. I bought books yesterday for half the price or less of what one pays in the US and found out today I can ship them for roughly 10 USD/5kg (though it will take 3 months for them to arrive in the States) I really feel almost guilty to be so blessed right now with internet, hot water, cheap reading but I think somehow I'll manage ;)