Catching up (or Marnin’s Trip, Part 2)

The long gap between postings is easily explained by two papers I had to write, two conferences I attended, and two trips I took within India.  Now that my whirlwind January is over and I’m back in the US I can look back on my experiences and share some of the highlights with you.  When I started telling you about Marnin and my trip to Madhya Pradesh I promised you a posting about food (much awaited, I’m sure).

I think I haven’t written much about food in India because for the most part I was eating at home.  The food was good but if everyone blogged about good home-cooked food I think the internet would get too crowded with ravings about mom’s meatloaf and the like.  I prefer, instead, to tell you about the special food we had when eating out.  For the most part dining out in India is quite boring.  Most places have the same menu and the only difference is whether the restaurant serves meat or not.  It takes a special restaurant to break through this monotony and Marnin and I did get to two good places on our trip back in November/December.

The first was in Agra.  We had asked our guide for a restaurant recommendation and he suggested Peshawri at the Sheraton hotel, which is known for its Northwest Frontier food.  

Marnin in Agra

This region, which is now in Pakistan, is home to some wonderful tandoori food and we enjoyed the delicately prepared meats and breads.  While naan is ubiquitous on Indian menus in the United States, it isn’t something most Indians make at home since it requires a special clay oven, or tandoor, and most Indian kitchens I’ve been in don’t even have an oven.  Naan is definitely a treat when eating out and the naan at Peshawri was chewy, hot, and tasty.  One of the nice things about the restaurant is that the kitchen is separated from the dining room by glass so you can see the cooks shaping the breads and spearing the kebabs.

The next day, after an early morning train ride to Gwalior, Madhya Pradesh (MP) we checked into a beautiful hotel that had been part of the local Maharaja’s property.  Although MP doesn’t seem to have any food specialties, the Maharaja was Maratha and someone in the family had married Nepali royalty so the hotel’s restaurant had Maratha and Nepali specialties (along with the usual North Indian suspects).  After a day of sightseeing, Marnin and I headed for dinner at our hotel’s restaurant.

 

Fort at Gwalior

 

 

Other than a few dishes that were marked as Nepali I couldn’t tell what were restaurant specialties so we asked the waiter.  He had some ideas but after explaining to him that I was living in Delhi and wanted to try food that was unique to the restaurant (in Hindi – that always helps!) he brought out the chef.  We talked briefly and he came up with some suggestions – some of which were not on the menu.  The food was excellent and the two dishes that stood out were the Nepali fish appetizer – lightly spiced and cooked in mustard oil – and spinach, which was divine.  When he came out after we were finished and we told him how much we liked the spinach he said it was actually easy to prepare.  He then spent about three minutes reviewing a recipe with too many ingredients and steps to keep track of.  I do remember there was butter in the recipe and we certainly were able to taste that as we were eating the spinach.

It turns out that the chef used to cook in Delhi, right in the neighborhood where I was living.  I never did get to check out his old restaurant but maybe I’ll do it when I go back.  While the rest of our trip through Madhya Pradesh did not have any culinary highlights, we enjoyed Orchha (a small town with an old fort, palace, temple, and several funerary structures called chhatris) where we stayed in the “Maharaja Suite” in a wing of a palace that had been built for the Mughal emporer Jahangir, Khajuraho with its amazing temples, and Bandhavgarh National Park, where on our third and last jeep safari we finally saw a tiger.

 

Orchha Chhatri

 

 

Bandhavgarh Tiger

 

Love and Grief

I’m sure I’m not the most qualified or eloquent person to write about this subject but it is weighing on my mind.  Besides, since I can’t be in Ohio right now maybe this is a way to help me process my own feelings about what has happened.

I found out on Christmas morning that a very, very good friend’s husband had jumped into a river to save their dog and died of hypothermia when he couldn’t get out.  Even putting this on the screen brings up all sorts of emotions and brings tears to my eyes.  

In the midst of my own grief I’ve been thinking a lot about our attachments to others and how gut wrenching it is when we lose them.  And then I thought how uncaring we are when we hear of other losses and barely give those people any consideration.  But how could we survive if every loss of life we read about in the newspaper or heard about on TV produced the same emotions?  So perhaps I should thank God that we don’t feel this way when it is somebody we don’t know or who has had no impact on our own lives.

But what pain we feel when it is someone who touched our lives.  And I find that my grief for my own loss is mostly overshadowed by the grief I feel for my friend whose life will never be the same again.

When we feel grief the weight can be so overwhelming at times that we feel that we can’t survive.  And then I also find that a few days into the grieving process I can feel guilty for not feeling the despair I felt earlier.  Strange, but I guess this is also part of being a human being who loves others.  I suppose it is also part of the healing process.  Time is a great healer but in many ways it is also nearly impossible to accept that fact fully when you are suffering in the middle of a great loss.

Again, I wish I had more wisdom to share but I don’t have the answers – just a lot of thoughts, questions and feelings at the moment.  This tragedy reminds me to appreciate and love the people who are in my life.  I take some comfort in the fact that although I’m a half a world away from my friend she has so many wonderful people around her who love her and are there for her.  Although I’m not with them physically I am with them emotionally and spiritually.  I pray for her, for her husband, and for his family.

For more information about Edo click here.

Marnin’s Trip, Part 1

 

Chhatarpur Temple

 

 

 

Marnin arrived on his first trip to India late in the evening on Sunday, November 23.  I had planned a short day of sightseeing in expectation that Marnin would be jet-lagged.  We started at Chhatarpur temple, a large new temple complex that has become a religious site and tourist attraction.  It also felt appropriate to start Marnin’s visit with a trip to the temple.  I think Marnin’s favorite part of the visit is that one of the priests applied tikka to our foreheads as a blessing from the temple’s deities.  He had asked if he would get a “dot” on his forehead long before he landed in India and less than 24 hours after arriving here, his wish was fulfilled.

Freshly blessed, we made our way over to the main attraction in South Delhi: Qutb Minar.  This was my third visit to the minaret built by the Delhi Sultans in the 13^th century.  It is also the site of one of the oldest mosques in India and there are plenty of ruins of different buildings to keep tourists occupied.  The main draw, however, is the tower, which appears to be a feat of architectural genius as it is the tallest structure I’ve ever seen built during this early period.  Our guide explained that it has 24 sides and was used as a sundial.  Another fascinating aspect of this site is that the people who constructed the buildings surrounding the tower used material from Jain and Hindu temples that had been destroyed.  You can see some of the old sculptures in the stones taken from these temples all around the mosque.

After our little tourist excursion we went to a friend’s house for lunch and Marnin was immediately initiated into Indian hospitality.  I know I promised to write about food in this blog but I usually eat at home and the food is good but simple.  Since Marnin and I ate out during our one week excursion to Agra and Madhya Pradesh I’ll write more about food in a future installment.  What you need to know about lunch at my friend’s house is that Marnin discovered two important things – first, that he loves Indian breads (in this case flat griddle-cooked chappatis with butter) and second, that he needs to pace himself when Indians are feeding him.  Indians are gracious hosts but when it comes to a guest saying “no” to food – they won’t hear it.  Usually you have to say no before you are even full so that you get one more serving.  Then the next time you say no they might listen and not give you more of that particular course to eat.  I had forgotten to warn Marnin of this so he kept accepting more servings of chappatis and what was already on the table without realizing that more food was on its way.

Marnin planned our second excursion and we went to the Delhi zoo, the Crafts Museum and the National Museum.  I added a picnic at India gate for a real Delhi experience.  The funniest part of the day was when we saw a sign at the zoo warning us about stray monkeys.  Marnin asked if monkeys regularly got out of their cages and I said that it wasn’t the zoo monkeys they were talking about – Delhi, and most of India for that matter, is host to bands of wild monkeys that can actually be quite a nuisance – ruining laundry that has been hung out to dry, stealing food from inside people’s refrigerators, etc.  Just as I explained this to Marnin we came across a troop of them looking for food around the hippo exhibit.  Here’s a comparison of a zoo monkey and a “bandar,” or one of these wild monkeys I’m talking about.

 

Zoo Monkey

 

Stray Monkeys

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our last day in Delhi during this part of the trip was busy with a trip to Old Delhi and a dinner with some friends I’ve met since I’ve been here.  I think this was Marnin’s favorite part of Delhi as Chandni Chowk’s crowded lanes and small shops are really quite a world apart from anything we’ve grown up with.  Many of these lanes are too small for even a rickshaw but people are able to negotiate the narrow passages without too much trouble.  I’m especially impressed by the men who work there and are able to carry huge, heavy bundles of goods in and out of the markets.  Toward the end of the day we had lunch with Chacha and Chachi, part of the family I’ve worked with, and stopped at the bird hospital behind the Jain temple on our way to find an auto rickshaw to take us home.  Marnin was a bit concerned about going to the bird hospital because it is a good place to pick up diseases.  He was a good sport about it anyway and it is comforting to know that some animals around here are being taken care of.

Dinner that night (Wednesday) was our attempt at a Thanksgiving dinner with vegetable lasagna, garlic bread, arugula salad, and red wine.  We might not have eaten turkey but it was quite a feast!

Next time I’ll tell you about our travels to Agra and Madhya Pradesh.

I spoke too soon…

In the last couple of days I’ve added to my list of animals spotted around the city with some good ones.  There is a large park that I can walk through to get to one of my research sites and I’ve gone through it a couple of times.  The first time I noticed what I first thought might be turkeys (maybe I have Thanksgiving on my brain) but when I got closer realized that they were peahens.  Nice birds but not quite as exciting as coming across a male, which I did yesterday.  I tried to take some pictures but he wasn’t really interested in posing for me.

Then walking through another neighborhood I noticed a stray dog with five adorable puppies.  It makes you want to take them home (like my acquaintance Mamta’s son did) but it would be impossible to save every one.  I really feel sorry for them because they’ve got a hard life ahead and probably only one or two will survive into adulthood.  I’ve said this before but I just want to go around with a vet some day (oh wait, I’m married to one now) and sterilize all of the stray dogs in at least my neighborhood.  That would be an all day project because there are so many of them.

 

Mamta's Puppies

 

 

On a happier note, I just got back from a walk to the bank.  It is a short three residential blocks away and as we turned the corner from our house to start toward the main road I saw an elephant.  She was brightly painted and as we got closer I could see her huge but gentle-looking eyes.  I think she might have still been young because she didn’t seem all that big to me – at least not as tall as other elephants I’ve seen although I wouldn’t want her to step on my foot!  We took some pictures and gave some money to her owner/trainer who was able to get her to step one way or another with a voice command.  I think she might be hired for a wedding procession or something otherwise I have no clue why she would be just down the street from our house.  Sometimes India is full of surprises.  You never know what is around the corner.

The wildlife of Delhi

While I’ve been mostly going back and forth from my home to my research sites I have managed to notice and appreciate the animals dwelling in the city’s parks, streets, and trees.  I was particularly struck on Wednesday morning as I took what has now become a regular walk in our local park.  Some of you know that I have a particular interest in birds although I am by no means a talented birder.  A few times before Wednesday morning I thought I had seen rose-ringed parakeets flying but this time there was a flock of them in the trees in one area of the park.  I must have looked funny to the locals as I watched the birds in amazement because they are quite common here.  But it is really special for me to watch these green, long-tailed birds in the wild.

Otherwise, the most common birds we see around here are the old trusty pigeon, crows (which here have gray bodies and black heads), doves, and brown birds with yellow beaks.  If anybody knows what these last birds are please let me know as I haven’t been able to figure it out and they are everywhere.

Delhi has its fair share of mammals too with stray dogs making a home in front of every other house.  There are cats also but I haven’t seen them as much.  Perhaps the most fun and numerous are the squirrels, or as my friends and I started calling them years ago “chirrels.”  I am assured that they are actually squirrels and observing one sitting on its hind legs the other day and eating in very squirrel-like fashion.  The disconnect for me is that they have stripes and are much closer in size to chipmunks.  Their tails aren’t bushy but are a bit longer than the chipmunk.  So chipmunk-like squirrels = “chirrels” in my mind.

 

Taking a Break from Work

There are tame, working animals on the streets of Delhi too including the standard milking cow, horses usually used for wedding processions, monkeys (along with their annoying wild brethren), elephants (yes, I saw one once being ridden down outer ring road – think FDR drive in New York), goats, and my newest find: mules.  At least I think they are mules because I’m not sure if I could tell the difference between a mule and a donkey.  I often pass a construction site on my way to one of my field sites and they are actually using these animals to bring dirt out of the hole they are digging for the foundation.  I’ve tried to take a picture of them working on several occasions but their bags are usually emptied before I can bring my camera out of my bag so here is the next best thing.

 

One more animal I’d like to mention is the mongoose.  I’ve seen a couple since I’ve been here and although they look like rodents they are actually more closely related to felines.  Some of you might know what a meerkat is and those are an African form of a mongoose.  The Indian mongooses seem to be more solitary and carry themselves much more like cats.  Every time I have the chance to see one I’m reminded of a common folktale that we read when I first started learning Hindi about a mongoose who killed a cobra to protect the baby of the human family he lived with.

I’m sure I’ll add many more animals to my list when my husband is here and we go to a national park for a few days.  We might even see a tiger!

It has been a week of Hindu festivals and tough times for our pets

To give you an update, it looks like Chloe is doing well and won’t need surgery.  We’re not sure what happened to the other two fetuses she was carrying but the vet thinks that she might have delivered them and eaten them.  I know it sounds gross but it happens in the animal world.

On a sadder note, Marnin called me yesterday to tell me that his long-time companion Arbo, a fourteen-year-old dachshund, died that morning.  Although I’ve been missing Marnin, this is the first time I feel really bad for not being there for him.  Arbo had been with Marnin since before veterinary school and has traveled with him from Connecticut to Texas to California and finally to Ohio.  He was old, blind, and stubborn but I grew to love him (and I’m talking about the dog here :).  I know this must be hard for Marnin.  The good thing about working at a veterinary hospital is that his co-workers get how hard this is for him.  I’m glad he’s got support there since I’m not around right now.

The other thing that has been going on here is there have been lots of holidays.  Tuesday was Diwali, the most important Hindu festival in North India.  Diwali marks the dark new moon day, celebrates the triumphant return of Ram to his kingdom of Ayodhya after 14 years in exile, and is also the new fiscal year for Hindu businessmen when they worship Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth.  I went with my roommate Ann and a pandit (religious specialist – which is actually where we get our word “pundit” from) to her furniture factory in Faridabad where she sponsored a puja.  It was great to see her work – she does mostly leather furniture and other leather items (leather bound books).

The pandit came back to our apartment later that evening for a havan – a ritual in which Sanskrit mantras are recited and various things are put into a fire.  It is supposed to purify the air in the house and I’ll tell you it felt good to do it.  We needed some good things going on the house!  The other thing that people do is turn on all the house lights and light lamps and candles all over the house.  This way there won’t be any dark corners in the house and Lakshmi will come and bless its residents.

The difficult part (at least for me and Puppy, the golden retriever who lives here) is that Diwali means firecrackers.  The nights leading up to Diwali were punctuated by occasional firecrackers and one night some people just down the street lit them at about 1am waking me from a sound sleep.  Since there are no restrictions on where you can light fireworks they can be quite close and loud.  Diwali night they started at sundown and continued at least until midnight.  I was so exhausted I was actually able to fall asleep even though it sounded like a war zone outside.  The loud noises are bad but I find the pollution it creates even worse.  I woke up the next day with a sore throat that is only getting better now on Thursday evening.

The holiday on Wednesday celebrates a number of things.  I think the one that affected us the most is that skilled workers are not supposed to touch their tools that day.  This meant that Ann’s factory was closed and her driver wouldn’t work because he won’t touch the steering wheel on that day.  Needless to say traffic was light yesterday.  That wasn’t the case today (Thursday), which is Bhai Dooj.  This is the day when sisters and brothers meet, engage in ritual blessings and exchange gifts.  During my brief excursion out of the house today almost every two-wheeler had a woman dressed up in holiday clothes and jewelry sitting behind her husband presumably on her way to visit her brothers.  Sometimes you see a full family of four sitting on a scooter or motorcycle!

In India cousins are also considered to be sisters and brothers so I’m sending special greetings to my two “cousin-brothers” Ben Haft and Julian Haft.  Happy Bhai Dooj!  And happy Halloween too.

We drove around with what in the car?

This Sunday was an unexpected ride of highs and lows.  The major Hindu festival of Diwali is coming up on Tuesday and Ann and I had planned to go to the salon for manicures and pedicures and to the market to do some shopping for her daughter (and if I saw something nice for myself I thought I would pick it up).  I got ready to go out as we had planned around 11am but Chloe, Ann’s gray Himalayan/Persian mix had different plans for us.

Chloe had been acting strange all morning, following Ann around and being a little aggressive toward Puppy the Golden Retriever.  We had wondered a few weeks ago if she might be pregnant (she is intact and Snowflower, an intact male cat that Ann had given to a friend right before I moved in may have mated with her before he left) and actually did an overseas examination on Skype with Marnin, my veterinarian husband.  We didn’t really see any of the signs of pregnancy he was describing and when he told us that at that stage the babies would be strawberry-sized all I could feel when I touched her belly was cat flesh.  After this inconclusive exam we tried to notice if she was nesting but didn’t see any evidence of this either.

We didn’t think much about it other than Ann and Karuna (the servant) noticing that Chloe’s belly was a little bigger than usual until Sunday morning when it became clear that Chloe was starting to have contractions.  She wouldn’t leave Ann’s lap and actually struck her (much bigger and more aggressive) brother Adrian when he came by to see what was happening.  Karuna put a cardboard box together for Chloe and laid newspaper and old towels in it.  We eventually were able to get Chloe to settle in the box and either Ann or I stayed by her side for the three hours it took for her to deliver.

 

Chloe on Ann's Lap

 

 

Chloe bravely handled her contractions and her instincts kicked in when the first baby came out and she began licking it.  Ann has witnessed many cat deliveries and said that Chloe had to lick the membrane off the kitten’s face so that it could breathe.  After what seemed like an eternity, we finally got a glimpse of the kitten.  The body looked developed but it didn’t have any fur and the head didn’t seem fully developed.  It was never viable and the second to be delivered was even less developed than the first.  My hopes of kittens in the house (and even taking one back to the US with me in three months) which had arisen during Chloe’s labor were now gone.  Chloe seemed to be taking it all very well although she continued to follow Ann around even though I thought if I had gone through such an ordeal I would want to sleep for a long time.

After taking pictures of the stillborns for my husband (yes, he likes to have pictures of such things ready for PowerPoint talks he might give in the future) Ann placed them in a plastic bag.  She eventually put this bag in another plastic bag and then put the whole thing in a bigger bag along with the towels that had been in Chloe’s box.  She said that since the whole household knew what was in them we should try to find a place to throw them outside.

Easier said than done.  India isn’t big on public garbage cans, which may be why people throw trash anywhere they please.  Once the entire thing was behind us and I had a little lunch, Ann and I left with the bag to go to the beauty salon and market.  For the Sunday before Diwali the market areas were quite empty – probably a combination of a weak economy and fear of more bombs in popular shopping areas.  It is still warm here so Ann took the bag out of the car and into the beauty salon with us so it wouldn’t be sitting in the car while we were getting our manicures and pedicures (and I got threading for my eyebrows).

We still had the bag with us when we got back in the car to drive to the other market for shopping.  I wasn’t in the mood to look for anything for myself but Ann found a couple of things for her younger daughter.  We had to drop a Diwali gift at a friend’s house and I told Ann that I knew of a garbage area near my friend’s house.   Ann said that I should throw the towels out separately so somebody scavenging in the garbage heap didn’t take the whole package.  She was right as it was unlikely that the towels wouldn’t be picked up by somebody going through the garbage and it would be unpleasant for them to find the dead kittens in the same package.  Unfortunately when we got there it was empty and a man was standing near the entrance.  I didn’t think we would be able to throw away the bag with somebody there so we drove away.

After picking up some ice cream we ended up driving back home with the bag still in the car.  I told Ann that I could discreetly place the bag in the kitchen garbage and hopefully nobody would notice.  When Karuna opened the door she helped Ann with her packages, which gave me the perfect opportunity to slip into the kitchen and finally get rid of the bag.

Update on Chloe: We took her to the vet on Monday and she has two undeveloped fetuses in her womb.  She’s on antibiotics and we’re hoping she’ll deliver these two on her own.  Otherwise she’s going to need surgery but at least at this point she is infection-free.

Friday Night at the Movies

So I’m still catching up on telling y’all about last weekend – my first few days off since I arrived here in India.  I had been invited to a satsang (this means a “gathering of the virtuous” and is often used to describe a group of people who meet to sing devotional songs) on Friday afternoon by one of the women from the Sheikh Sarai kirtan and I was excited to participate in this different group.  I had planned to see a movie with my roommate Ann later that evening.  I’ve written before about going to the movies in India and it is definitely something I enjoy doing.  In many ways, if you let yourself, you can spend an hour and a half away from India and some of the difficulties that you inevitably encounter when you are here.

We spent a couple of days looking at what movies were coming on Friday but had difficulty figuring things out because the cinema we wanted to go to was having some trouble with its website.  It looked like “Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day” was actually going to be playing – a definite improvement in my mind over the usual English-language action and horror movies that play here.  We finally figured out that it would be playing at PVR Cinemas in Saket by Friday afternoon.  We ordered tickets in advance because it is common to arrive at the movie theater on a weekend and find that all of the showings of anything worth seeing have sold out.  Ann was disappointed that we couldn’t go to the movies at the new mall in Saket, which she was raving about (and Ann isn’t a “mall person”) but I was happy to be returning to the PVR in Saket from where I had escaped for a few hours so many times before.

I arrived at home at about 7pm to find Ann having an apple for a snack.  She said that she happily would eat a whole tub of popcorn for dinner.  I had a huge snack at the satsang I had attended so it worked out perfectly to top it off with popcorn once we got to the theater.  There was a lot of traffic on the way to Saket even though we are pretty close to that area.  Ann explained that things would just get worse as Diwali approached (a week from today).  Think Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve!  It took long enough for us to get there that we were able to pick up our tickets and walk into the multi-screen theater to order our popcorn.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is the security at ordinary places like movie theaters.  I was talking about this with somebody last night who described the three-hour process of getting into the Statue of Liberty on a visit to the US a few years ago.  In India, however, you go through security lines at several places including movie theaters and malls.  Usually there is a separate women’s line where the security guards are women.  The first step is walking through a metal detector.  Sometimes it is hard to tell if it is actually turned on.  Occasionally they beep when somebody walks through them but this doesn’t seem to alarm anybody or change the security person’s routine in any way.  You open your purse and the security guard looks through it – some do a more thorough job than others and look in every single pocket.  Often they will ask you to turn on your cell phone.  I have no clue why but maybe some bombs are detonated this way?  Then they frisk you, demonstrating the necessity of having two separate lines for men and women (they touch you everywhere!).  Sometimes if there is only one guard attending the line people get impatient and try to shove their purses at the guard to be done with the whole process (although most people don’t walk away from the line into the place that is being guarded even though the guard couldn’t do anything about it and might not even notice).  This being India, it is important to make sure that nobody jumps ahead of you in line or you’ll never get to your destination!  Once you go through this process, however, it is likely that the other side of the security line will be like a breath of fresh air and you can leisurely walk into the mall or movie theater.

When you buy movie tickets in India you are assigned a seat and for some reason the further back you are in the theater, the better the seat is considered to be.  So even though our theater ended up being only about one third full, we were all in the last four rows sitting elbow to elbow instead of spread out comfortably.  And to top it off, one of the men who sat to our left was wearing an oppressive amount of cologne, which didn’t do the best job of covering his body odor.

I was intent on enjoying the experience despite my surroundings.  I was astonished that the popcorn was so good – really crispy with the salt evenly distributed.  It was actually better than the usually soggy popcorn you get at our local AMC theaters.  And then once the lights went down I was transported into a different world.

Both Ann and I enjoyed this light-hearted movie with a positive message and felt refreshed and ready for a fun weekend.  Although Ann only likes to go to English language movies, I actually enjoy going to the Hindi-language Bollywood movies on occasion and hope that I’ll get a chance to go soon.

Yom Kippur/Dusshera in Chandni Chowk

 

Hanuman is ready for battle

Last week with Navaratri ending on Wednesday I thought I would have a quiet Yom Kippur on Thursday.  For those of you who don’t know, Yom Kippur is the Jewish day of atonement and we fast without any food or drink from sundown to sundown.  This is actually one Jewish tradition that I observe because I find that it provides me with the space to reflect on my actions and experiences of the previous year.  I usually like to take a long nap in the afternoon during Yom Kippur and since I didn’t feel like trekking all the way to the one synagogue in town (and I had no clue how crowded it would be) I spent some of the morning in quiet reflection. 

 

My peaceful day was not in the cards for me, however.  Yom Kippur overlapped with the Hindu festival of Dusshera last Thursday.  Late in the morning I decided since today was a holiday I would call Chacha’s house in Chandni Chowk and see if we could meet some time the following week.  Chacha (father’s younger brother – aka “Uncle”) and his wife Chachi live in a home in the heart of historic Old Delhi.  They are one of the branches of the family I worked with for my dissertation so I have spent a lot of time with them and enjoy visiting this very different part of Delhi when I have the time.

When I called their son Vaibhav, who is in his last year of college, answered the phone.  After catching up a little he started telling me how the whole family (all six siblings and their families who still live in India – two brothers are in the US) was coming to the house for Dusshera that very afternoon.  He said I should come because I would get to see everyone.  I said it was tempting but I was fasting that day and I didn’t think it would be a good idea to travel all the way there (it is about an hour from where I live depending on traffic) and see everyone in my condition (those of you who know me well know how cranky I can get when I don’t eat!).

Somehow Vaibhav convinced me with the promise of seeing the whole family, the local Dusshera parade and the burning of the demon king Ravana in effigy that is part of the celebration.  I told Vaibhav he should be in sales because I went from really wanting to have a quiet day to going up to one of the most crowded areas on the planet amidst a huge celebration.

I used to take the bus up there but decided for my own sanity to hire a taxi for the day – 800 rupees (or about $17) for 8 hours and up to 80 km.  The taxi had no problem getting up to Old Delhi since it was a national holiday and there wasn’t the usual commuter traffic.  There was some congestion around Chandni Chowk because of the festival but it didn’t slow us down too much.  As soon as we got there I realized a fundamental problem I hadn’t considered.  Where would the taxi park when so many people had converged on this area of town (Chacha’s house is basically right across the street from the fairgrounds where the burning would take place)?  Perhaps we were early enough but we somehow found a parking spot almost directly across the street from the house.  It was truly a miracle!

I made my way into the little gully that leads to Chacha’s house, let myself in the turquoise painted wooden door and walked up a flight of stairs to the “first floor,” which consists of an open courtyard with a doorway to a living room on one side and a family room and kitchen on the other side.  I was welcomed and immediately ushered into the formal living room where the uncles were sitting and talking.  I sat on one of the sofas and began to answer the questions I would be asked all day – when did I arrive?  Where was I staying?  Who was I staying with?  How much am I paying in rent (believe it or not this question is quite common even from people I’ve recently met)?  When did I get married?  Where is my husband?  What does he do?  And on and on…  After some time if the last people who had asked me these questions were still around when the next people were asking they would kindly help me answer.

It was really quite fun to see everyone again.  Chacha and Chachi’s daughter is now married so I got to meet her husband.  The children of some of the cousins had grown and some of the other cousins had young children I was seeing for the first time.  I mostly sat in one spot and had an array of conversations with uncles, aunts, cousins, nieces and nephews.  The hardest part of the whole experience is that Chachi is one of the best cooks around and the food everyone was eating looked so good.  Luckily people here understand fasts pretty well so once I explained what I was doing and word got around people stopped offering me food.

One of the nephews took a liking to me and brought me outside to see the “carts” that would be used in the parade later that afternoon.  He brought me back outside with his grandfather to get a spot in Dariba Kalan (a small street behind the house that has been known for jewelry since the 17^th century) to watch the parade.  It was quite fun and clearly children enjoyed seeing gods and goddesses and characters from the Ramayan, a Hindu epic, play fighting.

After the parade we went back upstairs where the cousins were exchanging gifts.  Each of the female cousins gave each of the male cousins auspicious marks (tikka), barley sprouts, gifts, and sweets.  In exchange the male cousins gave each of the female cousins money.  Seeing as there are six siblings living in Delhi and each of them have at least two children it took quite some time (some of the cousins weren’t there) but it was fun to watch the exchanges.

People started leaving around sunset (which I was hungrily anticipating) but before I got to eat we started hearing the firecrackers that signaled the first effigy had been set on fire.  We rushed down to watch the rest of the effigies burn from afar.  Dusshera celebrates Lord Ram’s defeat of Ravana and every neighborhood throughout north India and perhaps beyond burns effigies of Ravan and his two brothers.  In fact, Vaibhav mentioned that many know the schedule of when each locality will start their program and spend Dusshera evening going from one burning Ravan to the next.  The effigies at the Ram Lila grounds were quite large and their fires burned high and bright in the darkening sky.  As soon as Ravan burned out Vaibhav rushed me and the others back into the gully to avoid the massive crowd that would be moving on to the next burning Ravan.

 

Ravan and his brothers

 

 

Back upstairs I was all ready to leave but Chachi insisted I eat before I left.  I was happy to oblige and filled up on her good food, having completed my own spiritual battle.  Overall, while it was not anything close to what I had planned for the day, I had a better time than I could have imagined.  My growing ability to be flexible really paid off!

Navaratri Part II

The temple program started at 11:30 each morning and was over by 1pm like clockwork.  Not only was it productive for my research, I also enjoyed meeting some of the women who participated in this event and on the last day (they finished their program on the eighth day of the festival) the women were inviting me to come back for their 11:30 Tuesday morning sessions and the evening program they have at the temple on all other days of the week.  After this I would usually go back to Neelam’s house with her and sit and talk or watch TV with her.  I either ate lunch with her or in Sheikh Sarai, my next stop on the kirtan tour.

Walking to Sheikh Sarai was a little easier because there is a “subway” which is a pedestrian path that goes under Outer Ring Road.  The subway is actually fairly clean and there are a few shops in it so it is quite a pleasant way to get to the other side of the main road.  It was another ten minutes to Sheikh Sarai and Mausi’s flat where I would go before most kirtans.  Mausi literally means mother’s sister and she and her family were instrumental in my earlier project and have treated me like family.  Nani (maternal grandmother), who I first met in 2001 is also staying at the house and although she is old and moves slowly, her mind is still sharp and she is good at making jokes.  I would usually sit with Mausi and Nani (or sometimes nap!) until it was time to go to the kirtan.

Unusually for India, where everything tends to be late, even though the start time was set for 4pm this kirtan would start early and so we would try to arrive before 3:30.  The kirtan was in a different participant’s flat each day.  There were some participants who made it to the kirtan for all of the nine days but most women came for either one or missed a few of the nine days.  It was good to see familiar faces (I have attended this group before) and get to know people better.  By the end of Navaratri I had collected a number of phone numbers and a few invitations to come to other functions where I could observe more singing.

After the kirtan ended by 5:30 I usually went back with Mausi for tea and a little conversation.  I would try and leave by 6:30 to walk home because Mausi worries if I’m out walking past 7.  By the time I got home I would be exhausted from all of the kirtan energy, walking in the heat, and going non-stop.  I would usually crash in my room, turn on the AC, maybe talk to my mother on Skype, and do something mindless until it was time for dinner (usually about 8pm).  I might watch TV for an hour before getting ready for bed.

So, as you can see, I’ve been writing a lot but just not on this blog.  And I really only got a chance to step back from everything and just have some fun beginning on Friday evening.  But my weekend activities will have to wait for another day.

And for those of you who are wondering, I was successful at the FRRO and got my foreigner’s registration permit by the time I was required to do it.  Again, that is a whole other story!

Navaratri Part I

Well it has been quite a while since I last wrote and I have a very good excuse.  I timed my arrival in India for a week before a nine-day festival called Navaratri (literally “nine nights”).  I knew beforehand that there would be a kirtan (basically a gathering of people to sing devotional songs) every day during this festival in one neighborhood group (a place called Sheikh Sarai) so I thought I would start my research on these devotional songs (or bhajans) with them.  As fate would have it I sat next to a woman (Neelam) on the flight from Chicago to Delhi who invited me to her house to see a similar group.  Now I’ve met people like that before who give you their number but when you call they seem surprised.  Not Neelam.  Not only did she invite me to her house the week after we arrived but she invited me to accompany her to a temple in her neighborhood for Navaratri.

The planets must also have aligned to help me with my housing situation.  I stayed the first two nights at the AIIS guesthouse and knew that I either had to find other temporary quarters or find something permanent in that time.  It just so happens that my friend Ann has a large, four-bedroom flat and since both of her daughters are gone she was living alone.  She invited me to be her roommate and after a trial period I knew that it was the perfect arrangement.  It is a ten-minute walk from Sheikh Sarai and also walking distance from Neelam’s house and her local temple.  The flat is bright and expansive and my room is large with an attached bathroom with the most wonderful shower I’ve ever experienced in India (it is even better than our shower at home in the US!).  I have AC, wifi, and a TV and there is a live-in maid who does all of the cooking and cleaning.  I’m really living a luxurious life here with fabulous food, wonderful company, and enough privacy to get lots of work done.

So what have I been doing with my time?  I developed somewhat of a routine for this nine-day festival, which left me little time for relaxation but during which I got a great start on my research.  Ultimately, I want to interview a number of women about the bhajans they sing but I thought by starting off attending functions daily during Navaratri I would get to know more about the contexts in which these songs are sung and develop relationships with participants.  So my mornings usually started early at 6:30am when I woke up and checked my email from the US that came in during the night.  All I needed to do was open my bedroom door slightly and the maid knew to bring me a cup of tea followed by breakfast.  Sometimes I would have the opportunity to talk to Marnin over Skype if he could stay up late enough to talk to me (6:30 am here is 9pm the night before on the East coast – yes, I married a morning person!).

After finishing internet communication I would take a shower and dress before spending some time working on my personal growth with reading and writing.  Then I would usually finish writing my field notes from research the day before (even though I vowed before I arrived that I would do it right when I got home I was just too exhausted at the end of most days to make much of a dent in my writing).  I try to be as detailed as possible in my field notes about my experiences so that I can use them later for providing contextual details about my data, which help in my analysis.  I also spent some time writing reflections on my experiences, asking questions to pursue later, and thinking through some of the new information I encountered on a daily basis.  I would be ready to leave the house by about 11 so that I would have time to walk to Neelam’s neighborhood, about twenty minutes away.

While the walk isn’t more than two kilometers, South Delhi isn’t really set up for pedestrians.  It isn’t so much of a problem walking in residential colonies where there usually isn’t much traffic (try and see a video of my neighborhood here http://vupload.new.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=39957934898), but it does make walking in more congested areas difficult.  The biggest problem is that Neelam’s neighborhood is on the other side of Outer Ring Road from our neighborhood and crossing it can be tricky.  There is a light with an actual crosswalk in between our neighborhoods but pedestrians definitely do not have the right of way even when the light is in their favor and they are in the crosswalk.  You still have to be vigilant in making sure that you are not in the path of a vehicle making a left on red or a rogue bicycle or scooter darting between stopped cars and going through the red light on the other side of the street (http://vupload.new.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=39957994898).  Then there is the large petrol pump that I would walk past on my journey eastward toward the temple.  You cannot imagine where the next vehicle is coming from (behind, forward, from your left or right) and since I only have two eyes I would look around and say a little prayer before starting to cross the open space between the petrol station and the main road.  Luckily I made it to the other side every time without a scratch!

The next part of the walk included a stretch of road where male motorists and cyclists relieve themselves so I would make sure to keep my eyes pointed straight ahead so as not to see something I didn’t want to see.  At the end of this part of the road I was able to turn left past a school and inside the gate into the peaceful neighborhood.  Most of this area was shady, which made a huge difference during the last half of Navaratri when the weather turned less humid although it was still in the mid-90s.  I would have to cross a footbridge over a creek and ravine to enter Neelam’s neighborhood.  These “wild” unsettled areas tend to be where garbage and other waste collects so they tend to smell unpleasant.  The temple was just on the other side of the footbridge and sometimes if the wind was blowing in a certain direction you could smell a little bit of this area from inside (although it was never as bad as standing right in the middle of the footbridge).

More later…