Rishi's Blog

The Rain is Gone

2006-02-22T19:56:00.000+04:30

I can see clearly. India has regaled me with two great gifts, unique presents that possess the power to unwrap all the rest. Vision and Perspective. The first came to me like a scene from a sci-fi flick, with me lying draped on a strange bed with green and red lights flashing, beams of energy speedily vaporizing my body's tissue (this is more commonly known as LASIK, and thanks to this wonderful procedure, my vision is now better than a newborn baby's. For anyone concerned about the fact that I chose to have elective ophthalmic surgery done in a developing country, don't worry - I did my homework, and am convinced that I received as good or better treatment in Mumbai than I would have in the U.S., for less than one-third the cost.) The second gift came to me slowly, strolling softly over weeks and months, occasionally leaping into epiphanies, stalling on self-debate, and resuming with imagined resolutions. Two great changes, one astonishingly fast, the other unhurried, the former temptingly symbolic of the latter.

The picture you see on the left is me, no doubt, but an earlier version. This was me on September 1, 2005, sitting in a terminal at LAX, waiting to board a plane that would take me away from my home for the next 5 and ½ months. At that moment, antsy with anticipation, I suddenly thought to take a “before” picture of myself, so that I could compare it to what I would look like at the end of my journey. What you see on the right is me in India - an amalgam of cultures, a blending of identities, a self-analytical work in progress, and someone who's at heart a bit ridiculous. So, the question must be asked…who am I now?

Experience, especially that which arises from leaving one’s routine, will change a person. During this trip, I challenged my routine, replaced it, destroyed it, picked up the pieces and rearranged them into funny shapes. I believe the resulting alterations in my personality and worldview may not even be fully apparent at the current time, but that they will manifest themselves subtly in my attitude and my decisions over years to come – so that like the minor movements of a raindrop sliding down a car window, my life’s course will be altered by a thousand seemingly unimportant occurrences, each affected by an ever-changing perspective.

From this vantage point, I can only guess at the significance of the present moment. I can also attempt to gather my thoughts, for both current closure and future reminder. The following, then, is a list of some of the lessons I've learned in India. There is nothing esoteric or exceptional about them - you could likely find as much wisdom in a series of Hallmark cards - but the crucial difference lies in the fact that they were written by personal experience and introspection, rather than gleaned from a receptacle-bound greeting. This is my renewed perspective, a few plain old lessons of daily life of which we seem to always need reminders, and I present them here not to preach them to anyone else, but as a sermon to my future (forgetful) self.

1. Lose the tension.
Don't succumb to the desperation of daily life. Remember that the smallest of tasks can bring tension if you let it, but even the most demanding of tasks can bring pleasure if you allow yourself a healthy sense of detachment. Very few things in the world depend upon you, but one of them is your happiness.

2. Don't ask, "What am I going to get out of this?"
While prioritizing one's activities is a necessity, devaluing activities that do not have obvious gain can be terribly detrimental. When you begin to prioritize based on preconceived notions of utility, you sideswipe serendipity and miss out on life. Asking "what am I going to get out of this?" may make you more efficient, but it makes you less experienced, and fosters discontent with the inherent unpredictability of your world.

3. Be where you are.
Daydreaming is a fun playground for stifled creativity, but in excess, it can significantly diminish one's enjoyment of reality. Those around you deserve your full attention, and you deserve to fully experience what is happening at any given moment. (This one is really important for me, because I'm a hopeless daydreamer - I can be caught daydreaming in the middle of conversations, even when I'm the one speaking.)

4. No one should be hurt because you have been hurt in the past.
Pain has a way of reviving itself. Too often we hurt others because we are unconsciously reliving our past pain, and using it to lash out in subtle or obvious ways. When you feel anger towards someone, take a moment to step back and ensure that you are not becoming an instrument of the hurt in your past.

5. Understand insecurity.
We all have some degree of insecurity, and it is responsible for much of our unhappiness. But it is not all bad. While it may cause us to act foolishly or to miss out on life's opportunities, it can also foster positive things such as creativity, humility, and compassion. Resist controlling it through denial or suppression, because that is an invitation for it to manifest itself in more insidious ways. Insecurity is like a fire - enlightening if controlled, consuming if given free reign.

6. Allow for your continuing self-creation.
Do not become attached to perceived images of yourself - this will hold you back. Allow yourself to reinvent and explore the different aspects of your persona; periodically eject yourself from your comfort zone in order to bring such challenges to the forefront.

7. Make a positive impact.
It doesn't matter how you do it. You don't need to take on the world. Some people prefer to make change with their hands, others with their minds - don't judge your own methods according to preconceptions of what is good or expected of a compassionate person. Do what makes you feel alive, and your positive impact will be felt much more strongly.

8. Spend time with yourself.
Some of your alone time should be spent on introspection, some without goal-directed thought, and some without thought at all.

9. Stay optimistic.
Don't concern yourself with whether the glass is half full or half empty. There's something in the glass, and you should take a sip. While you are enjoying your beverage, optimism is a wonderful state of mind to have, because it makes the flavor better, regardless of actual events.

10. Keep perspective.
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy, and none of them are stopping you from being happy today.

These lessons I will carry with me as I return to the U.S., to my usual life, to routine and responsibility. I've known enough study-abroad expatriates to understand that it is difficult to keep a hold on the romanticized lessons of a travel experience once you hit the mind-erasing speed of Western civilization. The past can drown if the current is stronger, but I will do my best to keep it alive.

And with this, my blog comes to an end. I may create a new blog for my domestic adventures, but I doubt I will have time to write regularly during my medical rotations. For those of you who have grown accustomed to keeping in touch with me through passive reading, this will perhaps push you to pick up the phone and give me a call (Ha! I hereby force you to actively communicate!) For those readers whom I've never met or seldom had contact with, please drop me a comment or an email so that perhaps we can change that. Also check for updates on my picture gallery (www.ofoto.com, email rishiblogpics@hotmail.com, password blogpics) fairly soon.

Today I feel blessed. To have received such gifts, to have a family that has allowed me to wander aimlessly against traditional Indian judgment, to have been given a chance to renew myself at a young age. Today I sunk my teeth one last time into masala corn on Juhu beach, savored one final kesar-pista soymilk, and dusted off my U.S. passport. India is woven deeper into my fabric than ever before, and I will miss it dearly, especially the loving presence of my grandparents. But I am revitalized, and excited to see my family and friends back home. This has been an unforgettable, incredible journey...bye for now, and thanks for keeping me cyber-company along the way.

Raj and Mita's Wedding

2006-02-15T00:17:00.000+04:30

These are the days of diamond promises and ceremonial collections. One by one, my lifelong friends are finding life companions, and rediscovering meanings, redefining boundaries, redeeming romance. I’m recuperating from all the weddings. Most of them haven’t even happened, but the sheer anticipation spins my senses.

Raj, someone I grew up watching cartoons with and smacking with childhood pillows, turned 27 two days ago and turned into a husband the very next morning. I watched it happen. He still seems like the kid I always knew, except the smile got bigger and goofier, and there’s a subtle transition to maturity lurking beneath the boyishness. Happiness and Responsibility meet in his eyes, strange bedfellows, now linked by nuptial vows.

We sat up in a hotel room the night before the wedding, eating cookies and discussing shifting priorities. The past several days had whizzed by with festivities, a blur of dance, fireworks, food, and family, and suddenly the long-awaited moment was close. Gautam had surprised us by arriving on a flight from the U.S., and with his marriage to Anjali only months away, he (like Raj) carried the unmistakable air of a man ready for change.

Morning came, more brilliant than a diamond’s reflection, and kept its promise. Raj slowly trotted on horseback toward his chosen life. Gautam and I danced in front, helping lead the wedding procession to where Mita’s family awaited her groom. They greeted us in lavish style, by showering us with rose petals from the tops of painted elephants and shooting ceremonial rifle blanks into the air. We escorted the soon-to-be-wed into their golden gazebo, and busied ourselves with photographs and smiles while they made solemnly, sacredly sweet their bond.

And I looked on as Happiness and Responsibility joined hands, a beautiful couple, young and vibrant. Wise old Maturity blessed them with its ages and wrinkles. Perhaps they noticed. Perhaps their eyes were too enchanted by rediscovery. When my head smacked the pillow that night, my eyes took a dazzled rest, and I wondered if cartoons were enough anymore.

Whitewashing the Wood Fence

2006-02-06T12:06:00.000+04:30

As an American citizen in India, I’ve been the recipient of many proud speeches from local relatives and friends, all loosely based on the same theme – India’s fast pace of change. Like baby photos from a first-time parent’s pocket, the topic inevitably emerges. In spite of any troubles India has as a developing nation, its citizens revere it, and do not hesitate to display this devotion to those from abroad. They talk about its progress, its rich history of both cultural tradition and technological innovation, and its rapid scramble up the global ladder. They watch with glazed-happy eyes as modernity marks up the landscape and foreign investors take new interest. The improving standard of life in major cities means the decades-long brain drain is beginning to reverse, for once-exported software engineers are now increasingly likely to remain in their mother country.

While it is true that modernization and globalization are India’s newest crops, the soil continues to grow its harvest of centuries. As my uncle put it, westernization is “a thin veneer” – one need not look very deep to see that India’s core has not changed. In other words: Tom Sawyer may have his way with the whitewash, but he isn’t touching the wood inside.

In Ahmedabad, I recently attended a festival where Chief Minister Narendra Modi gave a stirring speech on the modernization of “Vibrant Gujarat.” Video clips in the background showed off the new multiplex movie theaters, street lights, and coffee shops. In Mumbai, modern youth enjoy the glitz of Bollywood, stay out late with the disco nightlife, and wear polo shirts and jeans instead of kurtas. In developed areas, most street signs and advertisements are in English, regardless of the local language.

But in these cities, the old village (gam) has not been banished. It’s simply been ignored. It continues to breathe, in spite of industrial smoke. My grandparents hire a driver named Valoobhai, and his gam is right off of one of Ahmedabad’s busiest streets. In fact, if you simply drove by at the speed of modern life, you would never notice the small dirt road leading into the dilapidated network of village housing. If you stared at the billboards where Shahrukh Khan smiles at you with his mobile phone, you might not notice the half-naked children defecating on the same grounds where they run and play. But Valoobhai took me to his home, explained the ways of his gam, and convinced me that globalization is not as global as we think.

He got engaged, to a girl he’d never met, at the age of 20 (days) and married at the age of 15 (years). Since ceremonies are expensive, when the eldest child in a family gets married, the rest are married off as well, age notwithstanding. (A two-year old in his family recently tied the knot, though unable to tie his shoes…actually, scratch that, I’m not sure if he even has shoes.) Post-marriage, the husband and wife are kept separated until well after puberty, and only allowed to see one another in the presence of a male from the bride’s family. When a child is desired, they are left alone for increasing periods of time, but still cannot live together. Valoobhai did not live in the same house with his wife until their child reached the age of two. He and his wife are not allowed to speak each other’s names aloud, but instead use their son’s name when addressing one another. (After some questioning, he told me his wife’s name, but said that if anyone in the village were to hear our conversation, he would be shamed.) The logic of all this? When asked, Valoobhai answers with a smile that says, “that’s the way it’s always been.”

Down the street from him, in modern India, arranged marriage has taken a new form dubbed “assisted marriage,” in which couples are merely introduced by their parents as wise suggestions rather than tied to one another without being consulted. Is the new generation rebelling against the old ways? If you read the Times of India, you might be led to believe that India’s youth are bold and experimental, even (dare I say it?) free with themselves. In what is known as “Page 3 Culture,” the newspaper consistently produces articles glamorizing teenage parties and sex life, just one page turn away from the morning comics. As if broadcasting to the world (and to its own children) that Indians are not prudes.

But when I talk to the youth themselves, I don’t hear the cries of rebellion. In ripening twenty-something year olds, I see fruit that won’t fall far from the tree. I remember one conversation I had with a homeopathy student from Mumbai, who spoke matter-of-factly about the fact that she’ll be arranged to be married soon. I searched her face for the slightest hint of angst, but it was nowhere to be found. Happy acceptance smiled back in its stead. She’s not the only one – many youth I’ve spoken to don’t even desire to play the dating game, because they feel that studies and other associated parent-valued priorities must come first. Even the disco-going crowd is aware of the limits of modernization. On the plane to Ahmedabad from Bangalore, I sat next to two girls from Delhi who bragged about the capital city’s nightlife – according to them, Delhi’s clubs are bumping every night until 3 am. Then I asked what would happen if I walked into one of these clubs and tried to strike up conversation with a girl. Their faces instantly grew grave – “Oh no, you couldn’t do that.” What would happen? “Her cousins would beat you, yah.”

Indians are willing to defend their traditional values. So what’s with the whitewash? What’s with the jeans and imported imagery? A complex psychology is in play. It came out one day when I was having lunch with several students from Mumbai. One of them asked me, “do you have Indian food in America?” I dropped my puri and stared at her, incredulous. I asked her to explain what Indian youth think of their NRI (Non-Resident Indian) counterparts in the U.S. She said, “frankly, the opinion is not so good.” Over the next twenty minutes, it became apparent that Indians born in the motherland harbor several misconceptions about Indians born in America (“American-Born Confused Desis,” or ABCDs, as they like to call us.) Gradually, the following views emerged: they think we never eat Indian food, eat meat even if we say we’re vegetarian, do not speak any Indian languages, cut all contact with our parents at the age of 18, and have “less feelings” than people in India. In short, that we’re merely the hypocritical spawn of clashing cultures. Byproducts of jacked-up karma.

And yet, from all appearances, they want to be like us. They have a fascination with American culture that can border on the ridiculous. And I’ve begun to regard this phenomenon as analogous to the way early 20th-century white culture in the U.S. viewed black culture at the time. As tempting, endlessly compelling, something to imitate but never to speak of highly. Put simply: Imitation + Denigration = New ownership of desired culture without sacrifice of identity. We want what you have, but in order to remain ourselves, we must put you down. Indian version: We’ll wear Tommy Hilfiger and eat at McDonald’s because it was our idea, not because we like you.

Which is not to say that we in the U.S. don’t perform the same cultural acrobatics. American-born desis are also victims of the global identity crisis, and we ridicule Indian-born immigrants to no end. “FOBs,” (Fresh Off the Boat) we call them. We imitate their accents and mannerisms. We exclude them in crowds. And yet, we desperately want to identify with India, and want everyone else in America to speak of us in the same breath as the exotic lands of the east. We create South Asian clubs on college campuses, dance to Hindi film songs, and tattoo “om” on our shoulders. We try to identify with two lifestyles at once, because each country creeps into the other, and to be honest, sometimes we don’t quite know who we are.

To be fair to Indian-born desis: they are much more welcoming of visitors from the U.S. than we are of them. They may secretly feel that we are Not Really Indian, but it doesn’t stop them from being friendly to us, inviting us to their parties, sitting down to lunch with us though we are strangers. When was the last time I invited a FOB to a friend’s party, or took time to eat lunch with one just because he looked lost? I’m ashamed at the truth – I never have. However, the youth here have consistently extended those courtesies to me.

It is a part of their traditional value system. Guests are to be revered, to be honored and accepted into one’s home. It is one of the many pieces of evidence that though India may be changing rapidly, it is still the land of aged culture. It is, indeed, a land of contradictions (then again, maybe not) and multiple identities. Arundhati Roy observed, “India lives in several centuries at the same time.” From what I’ve seen, I have to agree. Take any phenomenon in the world, any religion or language or technology, and chances are, someone’s doing it in India. Yet even with such multilayered and evolving fabric, the country retains an ancient charm. The roots are exceptionally deep, and the wood will not so easily give up its hue. So paintbrushes aside…what will keep me coming back to India for the rest of my life is not what can be changed, but what will always remain the same.

Doctors Without Orders

2006-01-24T20:08:00.000+04:30

For the past week, I served as a volunteer (“Assistant Doctor”) at the 32nd annual Shree Bidada Sarvodaya Trust medical and surgical camp in Bidada, Kutch (see www.bidada.org for details). From January 2 to the 22, the camp provided free services to 29,594 patients from the underserved villages of Kutch. This was my first experience of camp medicine, which is a different beast altogether than regular inpatient or outpatient care…the sheer number of patients is astounding, the pathology springs straight from the pages of obscure textbooks, and from somewhere in the sickly swirls of chaos a charitable heart steadily beats.
I was asked to assist in the Child Health Care Project, which seeks to offer basic medical, dental, and vision screening as well as preventive health education to school-age children in the villages surrounding the Bidada medical center. Every morning, I went with a group of professionals and student volunteers who left the main camp in a van and drove to a village school to set up clinic. Feeling a bit rusty on my clinical skills after months of essential denial that I’m in medical school, I alternated between volunteer and doctor, sometimes helping with logistics, and sometimes donning the stethoscope identity. In one day, we would screen anywhere from 200 to 400 kids, and leave them with toothbrushes, toothpaste, multivitamins, and anti-parasite pills. As the van drove away from each school, a crowd of giggling children would run after it to wave bye, and this was often the best part of the day - even if we hadn't been able to treat all of their medical conditions with our limited resources, we had made them smile.

At the main camp, I was housed with the other foreigners in a facility facetiously dubbed The White House. I roomed with Mike, the only white guy that Bidada has apparently ever seen. He was an absolute celebrity among the camp grounds - children, workers, patients, and shopowners all lit up with grins and ran up to give greetings when he walked by. While he shook enough hands to make a politician jealous, I laughed and marveled at the scene - somehow, I don't think if I showed up in a small village in rural Europe, I would have quite the same effect on people. White skin holds a sort of power in the developing world, which may be the history of globalization at work. In any case, Mike handled his status with an easygoing charm that could win over anyone, even those unimpressed by the symbolism of his appearance. He's simply that type of guy.

Being executive director of a nonprofit organization in the bay area, Mike has some grant-writing experience, and this came in handy as our group fumbled through writing a grant proposal to the World Bank for expansion of the Child Health Care Project. From our meetings, it became increasingly clear that medical camps such as these need people from all walks of life - though a dire need always exists for more physicians and medical personnel, a camp also must have people with organizational, financial, and managerial skills to survive. During the first day of the pediatric camp, overwhelming numbers of patients converged on the campus, and without sufficient organization, chaos would have reigned for days. Luckily, Vaibhav, a consultant from North Carolina, provided some needed management outside the building while his wife Shefali performed medical checkups inside. (So for anyone who has the idea that medical camps are only for medically-minded volunteers, please discard that notion and come save us management-illiterate science people from the madness.)

I met many other inspirational people at the camp, and Mike and I agreed this was unexpectedly the most enjoyable part of the experience. Tarak and Sharvari, a couple of young doctors fresh off residency, have inspired me to think of following their lead and taking a(nother) year off to travel the world before starting the long stretch of a career. Tushar and Monty, environmentally-minded Jains from Canada, have me itching to join them on yearly Jain youth camps near Niagara Falls.

I also got to know my cousin Ritu from New York, someone whom I'd only barely spoken to in the past, as our interaction had been limited to sporadic family get-togethers. She joined us for a celebration of my dad's and Shaktimasa's birthdays at Roopamasi's farmhouse near Bidada, where a group of Gujarati poets provided the evening's entertainment (although I could hardly understand the poetry, their style was something to behold - it was the proud spirit of gospel in guju guise).

The week was sprinkled with unique clinical experiences, intriguing conversations, trips to Mandvi beach, and loads of freshly made chikky. I've omitted writing about most of the medical nitty-gritty here, to avoid boring the 95% of people who don't care about that stuff...but if you're interested, send me an email and we can talk more about the differences between practicing medicine in the U.S. and in rural Gujarat. (Briefly, I observed the strange factory-like nature of camp life, where one's "humanistic medicine" values taught in socioeconomically advantaged bubbles are not always applied, and where individualized medicine takes a hit in the name of mass treatment. A paradox lives between the very humanistic charitable approach to medical care and the reality that where funds are scarce, individuals are not given priority over the group. Due to lack of staff, checks and balances are visibly absent, and a trainee's medical decisions are often the last word. This is sometimes scary and sometimes gratifying, because the amount of difference you can make is suddenly truly proportional to the amount of effort you're willing to put in, even as a student. This is the reason for this blog entry's title.)

I'm forcing myself to stop writing, lest I continue philosophizing for another three pages. I'm back in Ahmedabad now, fighting off some strange stomach bug that hitched a ride back with me from the village, and letting the sad realization sink in that I have only three weeks left in India. Time is more valuable than ever, so I'm going to go play cards with my grandmother.

(Explanation of pics: 1. Woman patient from village, 2. Sharvari and Tarak seeing patients at schools, 3. Mobile clinic group in van, 4. Children waving bye to us, 5. Ritu and I at Vijay Vilas Palace in Kutch, where Hum Dil De Chuke Sanam was filmed, 6. Dad and Shaktimasa's royal birthday celebration at farmhouse)

Fight in the Sky

2006-01-14T22:52:00.000+04:30

Birds and clouds cleared the way, leaving a perfect bluescreen for the confetti explosion above. Kites of all colors dotted the sky, hundreds of them, circling and dashing round one another in the annual friendly fight called Uttarayan (literally, “to go north” – it marks the day when the sun goes to the northern hemisphere, denoting the decline of winter and the coming of more colorful days). This kite-flying festival is a treasured holiday in Ahmedabad, and this is the first time I’ve been in India long enough to see it.

Bamboo kites are manufactured in small homes and on street corners for weeks before the festival begins. The kite string is enhanced with crushed glass held together by rice paste, making each string a weapon used to cut other kites out of the sky. The entire city spends the day up on its terraces and rooftops, with plenty of kites, sweets, and music around to keep the energy levels high, as people vie with their neighbors to see whose kites survive longest.
Fingers are taped in an attempt to avoid bleeding cuts. Power lines and trees are laced with the carcasses of disgraced kites, and young boys run with tall bamboo poles to retrieve them as prizes.

In the morning, my parents and I went to a relatives’ terrace, and I began to learn the ways of the kitefighter. I’ve flown kites many times, but steering them for deadly purpose is a different ballgame. The first three times I flew, I was easily embarrassed by veteran flyers who quickly sent my kites to a spinning demise. So I let my dad take the reins, and watched as his childhood skills came back to him in beautiful form…he cut a few competitors from the sky while showing me when to pull the string, when to let loose, and how to keep the kite in control. Feeling like a contender at last, I flew high – so high we could barely keep track of the kite, and I had to rely on the pull of the string rather than eyesight to guide me – and knocked three kites into oblivion before finally being cut loose.

The atmosphere was sunny, breezy, and exhilarating. We snacked on chikki and sucked sweetness from freshly peeled sugarcane. We trash-talked and laughed with neighbors. Whenever a kite was cut, we would hear screams of kaippo chhe!, and join in the hysterical laughter.

In the afternoon, I went to Naranpura, where the terraces are so close together you can jump across them with ease, and you have to watch yourself to avoid being bombed by falling kites or sliced by wayward string. At night I met up with Sachin and we flew tukkals, which are kites that have a trail of candles attached to the string, so that all you see are floating lights in the black sky. To make a tukkal, you first fix candles with melted wax into accordion-like paper cylinders, then tie the cylinders to the kite string and let the whole caboodle fly. What results is a mesmerizing illusion that you are not flying a kite at all, but sending flickering fires up to the stars. Of course, there are always white-kite predators at night waiting to cut your tukkal, so that the candles fall back to earth. (This happened to us…but don’t ask me what became of the fallen flames…we didn’t see any buildings catch fire, so no harm, no foul).

I’m tired and happy, and I’m going to board another train tonight…this time to Kutch, to volunteer at the Bidada medical camp. I’ll be gone for a week, and will post again when I return. In the meantime, thanks for the comments, and if anyone wants anything from India, let me know soon so I can try and get it for you!

A Warm Southern Welcome for 2006

2006-01-11T12:00:00.000+04:30

The past week and a half has been so incredible, I barely know where to begin. Everything from the best and craziest New Year’s I’ve ever had to the ultimate relaxation of backwaters and massage in Kerala…it will be tough to choose words for the experiences, but since I lost my camera and have no photograph record, words are burdened with the responsibility of preservation. I don’t expect that any of you will actually read the following account, as absurdly long as it will be, so if you haven’t the time I’ll simply tell you the stories when I get back. If you do have a moment, check out www.unclero.com. I was lucky enough to have part of a poem selected in the Poetry 4 Relief contest, held in order to raise funds for earthquake victims in Jammu and Kashmir (the website explains). Now, on to a day-by-day account of my trip to India’s spectacular south.

Dec. 30
My flight arrived in Mumbai at 8:15 am, and my connecting flight to Goa did not leave until the afternoon, so I had plenty of time to people-watch as Europe descended upon the airport terminals. Travelers from afar had come ready to party, some of them trying much too hard to advertise that image, wearing gigantic sunglasses and beach-wear indoors. I met Nirav and Jehan at the airport, and together we boiled in our seats waiting for the airplane to come, trying hard to keep sunny side up when the flight became delayed. Once in Panjim, Goa’s capitol, we joined Viral at The Mandovi Hotel and went to dinner on the riverside. Here, a live “orchestra” belted out rousing renditions of terribly bad songs, the undisputed highlight being “I Am A Disco Dancer,” which quickly became the theme song for our trip.

We jumped in a taxi to Anjuna Beach, where thatched-roof beach shacks lined the shore, offering cozy views of serene sandscapes just beyond the reach of the incoming tide. From afar, the shacks were candles illuminating an otherwise black night, casting tempting glows upon the coconut trees and crashing wave-crests. Inside, each shack managed a slightly different ambience, so that one could easily spend an evening hopping between them, sipping drinks and sinking into trance music. This we did for some time - however, our mood that night was not to find peace, but to find the crazy party scene for which Goa is famous. With the help of the only late-night taxi in sight, we barely avoided being stranded at Anjuna, and moved on to the relative liveliness of Baga Beach.

At Baga, innumerable tourists drank themselves to a dancing delirium on the sand. We wove through them and ended up at Mambo Tito’s nightclub, where in spite of a higher cover charge for single males, groups of guys searched in vain for a short supply of girls. We half danced, half laughed at the scene, and when content left the club in search of a 5 am snack. We found my brother’s college roommate Gaurav instead, and joined him and his crowd at a restaurant that never quite got around to serving us food. As I write this, I’m quickly realizing that most of the stories from the night are better told in person – so next time I see you, remind me to tell you about the security guard that bargained with himself, the guy who tried to beat his girlfriend on the street and was told by a policeman to “keep your problems at home,” and the traffic cop who answered his cell phone and ignored the immediately resulting scooter crash.

Dec 31
We slept in, and emerged by night. Our hired driver Laxman, looking too young to drive in spite of a well-placed mustache, was all smiles as he drove us to Baga to meet Jehan’s Sri Lankan friends for dinner. We ate at a beach shack playing a fabulous reggae-trance version of Dark Side of the Moon, and left defeated when the waiter wouldn’t sell us the CD. Although Baga was bumping, we’d been recommended to Club Paradiso at Anjuna for a good New Year’s party, and so drove to the northern beach where the scene was completely opposite from the night before.

Anjuna was overflowing. To avoid an all-male party, Club Paradiso was denying all single guys at the door; since we were 4 guys and 2 girls, we asked two British tourists (a mother and daughter from London) to join our group. Once inside, we were met by the sweetest New Year’s venue I’ve yet seen. The club boasted 4 outdoor levels, the top one a psychedelic dance jungle, followed by two balcony levels and finally a platform right on the rocky water. Beneath everpresent coconut trees and stars, DJs spun trance and staff members sold glowsticks to the growing crowd. At the end of the midnight countdown, fireworks launched from the club grounds to explode in fiery magnificence directly above our heads, and as blazing streaks spiraled to an oceanic rest, we congratulated ourselves on ringing in the New Year with a bang. Then we danced the night away. I’m not usually a fan of trance music, but something about the beats went under my skin and moved me, until my limbs were simply instruments of the fantastic sounds and their vibrations.

At around 3:30 am, Viral and the two Londoners (by this time big fans of his) convinced the rest of us to leave in search of another beach, to add variety to the night. After stopping our young British friend from lobbing eggs at the beehive of single guys buzzing around the club entrance (she did manage to hit one), we drove to Candolim, where we dipped our feet in the surprisingly warm water and snacked on fresh Goan bread. Rested and ready for more, we (guys only, as the girls all took their leave) searched for another scene. By word of mouth, we learned of the Hilltop Party, hidden in the heights beyond the beaches, and were taken thither by the faithful Laxman.

At Hilltop, we finally witnessed the Goan culture of lore. Goa, the birthplace of trance and resort of drugged-out hippies, showed itself in full form. In the center of a large grassy knoll, pure 160 beat-per-minute Goan trance electrified the partygoers, who formed a skyward mass of undulating, disembodied limbs. The perimeter of the dance area was marked by gigantic purple-green posters made luminescent by the blacklights, and beyond this border lay a rectangle of large mats where a dimly lit drug culture lived and breathed in smoky fumes. We all agreed that our Goa experience was now complete having laid eyes on this scene, and shortly thereafter, we all agreed to leave the insanity.

The sun was now beginning to climb the sky, so we clambered up a nearby golden hill and watched as 2006 took its first daylight breath. 4 of us, friends made closer by an everlasting night, sat mesmerized as the party was slowly overtaken by solar rays. A red-orange sun ascended the coconut trees to claim its place in the heavens. A feeling of hunger pulled us. After a long drive back to the hotel for breakfast, we succumbed to the soothing relief of bedtime at 9 am.

Jan 1
Happy New Year! We slept in again, then hired another driver (this time a shady character, a far cry from the grinning Laxman) to take us to Colva beach. We sat on the beach absorbing our experiences, and gazed at the horizon as our morning’s rising sun took a fall to conclude its reign over the world. After a beach shack dinner, we drove to the train station, where Nirav, Jehan, and I said goodbye to Viral. (Viral was going to Delhi, the rest of us continuing south to Kerala.) I forgot my camera in the car, and when we later called up the shady driver, he denied ever having seen it...thus were lost all the pictures from our New Year’s celebrations.

Jan 2
After a grueling overnight trip in the sleeper car, during which several different people attempted to share Nirav’s bed berth in spite of his objections, we arrived in Kochi and made our way to the Casino Hotel on Willingdon Island. The polite hotel smacked us with the smell of pine-sol. Jehan’s friend Kalyan awaited us, and with this addition our group was once more a foursome. Our tour guide left us no time to shower, and zipped us off to see the sights, including a 16th century synagogue and the Dutch Palace with its beautiful mural portraits of the Ramayana. We learned of the coming of Vasco de Gama, the Portuguese takeover, and their eventual dismissal by the Dutch (all before the advent of British rule). At night, we took in a traditional Kathakali dance performance, beginning with the complex makeup rituals of the male dancers, followed by a demonstration of the gestural language of Kathakali, and finally a truncated performance of Shiva punishing Arjuna for his pride.

Jan 3
In the morning, we visited Fort Cochin and saw the famed Chinese fishing nets, gigantic wooden contraptions which trap flopping silver fish. After seeing St. Xavier’s Church, the original burial place of Vasco de Gama, and a Dutch cemetery, we drove away from city life to soak in the backwaters of Kumarakom.

The Backwater Ripples Hotel, situated amidst the purple water-lilies, herons, and coconut trees, reminded us of the beauty that sunlight can offer when you don’t sleep in all day. We swam in the infinity-style pool that seemed to empty straight into the lake, and took an evening Sunset Cruise for our first experience of Kerala waters.

At night, classical musicians gave a Karnataka music performance in the hotel gardens. Initially, only 3 of us formed the entire audience, making for a beautifully serene and solitary environment to enjoy the mystic violin and percussion melodies. However, the ambient silence was soon smashed by wildchildren. Two women showed up and let loose a herd of kids, who ran amok, dancing on stage and coming threateningly close to touching the musicians’ instruments as they played. The kids yelled and screamed while their mothers sat back and gossiped, paying no attention to the fact that a performance was underway, and that their kids were playing Godzilla. We each tried to give our best reproaching glares, but to no avail.

A digression: throughout my trip in India, I’ve been surprised by the lack of discipline among many of the young children. They run around fancy restaurants and bang the silverware as long as it pleases them, and parents simply don’t do anything about it. When I expressed this observation to my mom, she put me back in my place, because apparently I was more uncontrollable than any of these little amateurs. Still, I imagine that if I’d jumped on stage and started yelling during a classical music performance, she would have punted me from the premises, and rightly so.

Most Indian parents have very severe stories of how their own parents would assert household rules upon them, and as a result I’d grown up with an image that discipline in India is not something to mess around with. But apparently, the new generation of Indian parents has adopted laxity to an astonishing degree. It seems to be part of the larger philosophy of the streets here, which is, simply put, Anything Goes. If you can drive without lanes, do it. If you can bribe a cop and avoid a ticket, do it. Any way you can make a living, go for it, as long as no one stops you. This philosophy is evident in the smallest and the largest of daily phenomena in India, and I feel it is responsible for many good things (lack of road rage in spite of constant near-collisions) as well as bad things (corruption without even a pretense of secrecy). The funny thing is, if you adopt the Anything Goes philosophy, suddenly you’re no longer frustrated by it.

Jan 4
Kerala is famous for many things, among them a traditional style of Ayurvedic massage. At a local massage center in Kumarakom, we decided to go for the General Body Massage plus Herbal Steam Bath package (totaling 850 rupees). A small and surprisingly strong-handed man led me into a room with a massage bed, and after instructing me to remove my clothes, wrapped me in a small cloth thong which was to somehow preserve my dignity. Feeling like a featherweight Sumo wrestler, I lay on the bed and watched as he heated up various oils (mostly coconut) on a fire. The massage consisted of ensuring that every inch of me (excepting thong-protected areas) was doused in enough oil that I had to lie perfectly still to keep from slipping off the bed and hitting the floor. When I stood up and glanced at the mirror, I looked like a walking stick of Amul butter. Then came the steam bath, which meant sitting in a wooden box with only my head sticking out, as the vapor deep-fried my skin. All in all, a relaxing experience.

Soothed by massage, we rented a small thatched-roof boat and set off into the backwaters, full of gorgeous small canals dripping with lush greenery. This was the most picturesque portion of our trip – one could easily feel displaced in history, surrounded by primitive flora and fauna, at peace with an earth discovering itself for the first time. Had a brontosaurus poked its head out from behind a large fern, it would not have struck me as out of place.
Our tiny vessel’s captain proudly pointed out the village of Ayemenem, Arundhati Roy’s hometown, as we passed through its canals. This was an especially surreal moment for me, as her book The God of Small Things recently became my favorite novel. The story is mostly set in Ayemenem, and as we drifted through the village, I imagined we were there in Ammu’s river that swelled with the rains. When small children waved at us and happily ran after our boat, I imagined them to be Estha and Rahel. When I saw a dark-skinned carpenter by the riverbank fashioning a canoe, I imagined him to be Velutha. And when I saw a small hut with a communist symbol decorating the doorway, I knew it had to be Comrade K.N.M. Pillai’s, and I imagined the passing triple-file legion of marching ducks to be quacking party slogans in a Naxalite demonstration.
After a perfectly outlined crimson sunset, night fell on our journey, and legions of bats began to soar overhead as a local temple played its music of worship.

Jan 5
Now that we had seen life in both urban city and backwater village, we headed for the hills. Munnar is known for its high-altitude tea plantations, manicured patches of green from which Kerala picks its choicest tea. On the drive, we stopped by a waterfall and Nirav and I hiked down to its misty foot, thoroughly enjoying what felt like a bit of Yosemite in the midst of India. We refreshed ourselves with fresh pineapple juice from a roadside stand, and proceeded to wind our way up the mountain roads.

After staying at fairly expensive hotels in Kochi and Kumarakom, we opted for a budget stay in Munnar at the Daneyshree. At a local STD booth (for all you med students, that’s a phone booth), I unexpectedly ran into my cousin Runal from northern California! So we had dinner with him and his sister Riddhi that night, and enjoyed the crazy antics that only Runal can bring to the table. First off, he took us to his hotel but forgot which room was his, so he barged into two different rooms (saying “sorry, wrong room!” each time) before finally resorting to yelling for his mom from the lobby. At dinner, he took a bite of paneer tikka and started panting. I asked him what was wrong, and he gasped, “the food…it’s so…expensive!...no, I mean…spicy!” Gotta love the guy. We amused ourselves by listening to him, while Jehan continued to amuse himself by flirting with elderly French couples (he’s a French-born Sri Lankan) and singing “I Am a Disco Dancer.”

Jan 6
Morning renewed us, and we went for a hike in the mist-laden mountains. The tea plantations glowed in the early light, hills that had been clipped and combed, ready for their photo shoot. Patches of proper England in the midst of Indian roughage. Our guide led us through the tea estates, then up into the dense shrubbery above, pointing out all manner of medicinal herbs along the way. We trampled new paths along the mountain, through thorn-protected bamboo, golden and violet wildflowers, around boulders and trees. Every so often we’d catch dramatic glimpses of the countryside below, moments before curtains of fog closed in to shroud us in clouds of white.

The fog occasionally led us astray. Lost in one particularly dense section of the trek, I paused by a bush to wait for a couple of the others who had taken a water-break. When my wandering eyes slowly came to focus, I noticed that the leaves in front of me carried the weight of at least four dozen scurrying spiders. Moving slowly a few steps away, I came to another bush that was home to literally hundreds of them, small white-spotted black marbles with eight spindly legs crawling all over one another to get closer to the human intruder. We noticed we were surrounded by arachnids, and quickly sped away to safer grounds…what we didn’t notice was that in our few moments of hesitation and wonder, several small leeches had leapt into our socks and were feasting on our veins. It started with a small itch. Then someone checked his leg, and noticed a black bloodsucker burrowing into the skin. We all hurriedly pulled up our pant legs and discovered our attackers, then desperately peeled them off with twigs or fingers, leaving bright red wounds to steadily bleed away. Realizing we had to keep our feet in continuous motion to avoid more leeches, we started to hop around like madmen. Once the bloodsuckers were gone, the situation suddenly tickled us, and we all cracked up at our silly adventure. Jehan nicknamed me Dances With Leeches. We sped down the rest of the mountain, a little less blood but a little more alive.

Jan 7
The last day of our disco-dancing group tour, and the fab 4 was forced to split. This sudden end to the fun brought into sharp relief what I had enjoyed most from the travels – not the partying madness or the beautiful scenery, but the company. All the comic moments, inside jokes, and delirious late-night laughter you share with friends. After the many months I’ve spent away from my usual circle, it meant a lot to be able to share these experiences with a good group of guys, especially with Nirav and Viral, who are like brothers to me. It makes me realize how much I miss the company of my own brother, and many others who are back home in the states. I hope you all have had as wonderful a New Year’s experience as I have, and I look forward to seeing you again, whenever that may be.

My next stop was Bangalore, where my dad’s sister and her family live. However, I was still on the waitlist for a berth in the train leaving Kochi, and the conductor wouldn’t let me on. I ended up taking a bus to Coimbatore late at night (a frightening experience, narrowly missing other sleepy buses on tiny bumpy roads) and arriving at its train station at around 3 am. All I remember is a metal detector that made carnival noises and furious flurries of mosquitoes. Finally I escaped by catching a 5 am train to Bangalore.

Jan 8 – 11
Enjoying family time and relaxing. My cousin Punit took me on a one-day tour of Mysore, where we visited many palaces, gardens, and temples, all beautiful in their own way. I’m going to skip writing about all of them, because the best part of the tour was getting to know my cousin – we’re only one month apart in age, and yet I haven’t had contact with him in nearly a decade. It’s amazing to see how like-minded we are, and what similar experiences we’ve had though growing up in different worlds. I could write another 10 blogs based on the discussions we had, but I’ll spare you the agony. If you’ve actually read this far, I admire your persistence, and salute you. Tomorrow I head back to Ahmedabad for two days, where I’ll enjoy the annual kite-flying festival (if you haven’t read The Kite Runner, please do). Best wishes to all of you, and please keep sending emails when you can, though I know I’ve been bad about responding!

The Watchman's Reminder

2005-12-30T02:48:00.000+04:30

Late at night, the security guard for our society clink-clanks his cane as he patrols the grounds, a rhythmic ritual that disturbs the drowsiness of the almost-asleep. It is a monotone, shrill, metallic reminder to the still atmosphere that hard-earned relief from the stifling bustle of daytime is but temporary.

It's 4 am, and I refuse sleep's enticement because I am to catch a plane in three hours. After three months of relatively restful routine in Ahmedabad, I'm putting on my shoes, stretching my legs, and letting the pace of life quicken. Already the speed of new experience has raced ahead of my ability to compose it into words. The number of things I wish to tell you, to preserve in blog form and fuel future nostalgia, is far greater than the spare moments I have in which to do so; I will likely not be as consistent with this space in weeks to come as I have been in weeks gone by.

Goa will be the setting of my New Year's celebration, after which I head to Kerala, then Bangalore. My weeks in Ahmedabad are now few, and I increasingly find myself musing on how much I will miss this life once I return to California. I want to drink it quickly, for fear of it evaporating before my eyes, leaving my mouth parched and the air heavy with memory.

The watchman is clink-clanking slowly and surely, telling me it won't be long before my days are once again full of noise and purpose. I will defy him as long as I can, and keep this night's silent music playing in my head, letting it be the soundtrack to a film that fights its own end. I'll do my best to keep you updated in the meantime.

Happy Holidays, and may your New Year live true to its promise of revival.

Love From a Stone Heart

2005-12-21T21:27:00.000+04:30

Our SpiceJet aircraft split the morning sky efficiently, like a human imagination, the swath of its slice producing dichotomies out of continuity, segregating perceptions, separating grayscale from color. Through the west window, night reigned, a white moon refusing to let its luminescence spread through a black world. Through the east window, a bleeding sky gave birth to a sun, and clouds rejoiced, setting their droplets ablaze. The males in our group sat on one side of the aisle, the females on the opposite, and we sleepily stole glances at the beauty of each others’ windows.

When we landed in Delhi, we feasted on warm dosa and began the sightseeing. The main attraction was the new Akshardham Swaminarayan Temple, an almost-finished religious center built from the sweat of 55,000 volunteers over 7 years. Security at the temple was more daunting than that of the airport – any cameras, cell phones, and “hanging purses” were not allowed through, presumably to discourage photography, conversation, and unauthorized hangings via leather strap. Finally through the metal detectors, we were greeted by the largest temple complex in India, a maze of sculptures and ornate pillars modeled after the finest of ancient carvings, a self-proclaimed revival of stone artistry. The carvings indeed rivaled those of Delwada in intricacy, and mesmerized the eye with their sheer size and number. Unblinking stares and gaping mouths wandered on our arched necks, struggling to take in the magnificence.

However, the faded stone only gave an illusion of chiseled antiquity. Inside the walls beat the electronic heart of technology, its copper veins giving life to the temple’s tales. One need not bother recreating spiritual stories from rock sculptures, for the temple has lifelike animatronic robots that tell you about the birth and growth of the Swaminarayan philosophy. One need not read ancient scriptures, for the complex includes a gigantic movie screen to show you a brilliant film on the life of the original Swaminarayan, a film with more special effects than Bollywood has ever seen, in a hi-tech auditorium complete with wireless headphones to provide English translation for the Hindi-impaired. One need not walk barefoot to see it all, for there is a boat ride to navigate you through a wax-figure history of India’s cultural accomplishments. It’s a dichotomy of austere ancience and flamboyant modernism, an unlikely combination of Delwada, Imax, and It’s A Small World, but somehow this new religio-Disneyland sews it all together seamlessly.

Since Akshardham was so impressive, I was afraid that the Taj Mahal (our next major stop) would be overshadowed. However, when we set eyes on the 17th century tomb of love the next day, it seemed clear that not even Akshardham could surpass the breathtaking beauty of that comparatively simple, sincerely mysterious monument of Agra. The Taj beamed back at our happy faces in calm marble confidence, secure in its position as the most famous of Indian shrines. Here cameras clicked wildly, and hanging purses swung innocently on women’s shoulders. Our guide, propelled by flesh and not robotics, recounted the tale of Shah Jahan’s love for his wife Mumtaz Mahal, how he built the Taj to honor her dying wish for a lavish grave, and how soon thereafter he was imprisoned by his son and thus prevented from building a black Taj Mahal counterpart for his own body across the river.

The Taj Mahal stands as an icon of undying love. However, Mumtaz was Shah Jahan’s third wife, to say nothing of his 400 mistresses. Our guide assured us that Shah Jahan disowned his harem after Mumtaz’s passing, but somehow the facts taint the romance. His son imprisoned him for many reasons, one of which was the Shah’s tendency to spend money building monuments instead of on his people. The son was no virtuous lad either – he killed his brothers before imprisoning his father so he would be heir to the throne, apparently a common practice in those days, so that a winner-take-all game of Survival of the Psychopaths decided which of a king’s sons would inherit the kingdom. But forget about the blood and the multiple partners, and what you’ve got is romantic (Undying Love’s ingredients may contain artificial colors and preservatives).

We left Agra and drove to Jaipur, passing along the way Bollywood-like fields of golden yellow flowers, which I watched carefully in case a prancing actor emerged from the shrubbery. Jaipur is the Pink City of India (more of a sienna), boasting palaces and forts of red sandstone, which we traversed while our guide wove more tales of violence and multiple lovers, the bread and butter of kings. When we got hungry, our guide took us to restaurants conveniently situated next to large tourist shops, and soon a pattern of cunning deals between shop-owners and drivers became apparent, reminiscent of Bangkok. We walked the halls of kings, we shopped, we eventually gave in to fatigue and returned to Ahmedabad.

It is fascinating how the actions of men are oft forgotten, yet their proclamations are preserved and polished in stone. Diamonds are promises, marble sculptures reminders, and since both outlast the reality of love's vagaries, both are honored with symbolic value. We consider a "heart of stone" to be cold and unfeeling, yet we choose to promote ideals of love with the very same materials, wearing them on our fingers, decorating our temples with their permanence. If the heart of stone outlasts the lover's emotions, the meaning of our symbols may always be at the mercy of a sculptor's skill.

Arrival of the NRIs (Plus a Top 5 List)

2005-12-16T16:01:00.000+04:30

The past 4 days have been a dizzying whirlpool of shops and relatives. I took my second trip to Mumbai, this time not to crash fancy parties, but to visit family, find bargains, and take relaxing sunset walks on Juhu beach. Those of you who know my distaste for shopping (electronics and sports equipment excluded) will sympathize with my mom for the Herculean efforts she made to get me to buy as many clothes as I did. I’ve emerged looking more desi than ever, wearing kurtis instead of t-shirts and chapals instead of flip flops. I’m even growing my hair out a bit, which is a bold undertaking, considering my naturally curly (read: afro) tendencies. This alteration of appearance comes just in time for the December NRI Invasion, when Indos from every country flock to India to enjoy the mild (no monsoon) weather. I’ve seen more friends and family from the U.S. in the past week than in the past three months, and feel strangely more Indian because of the incoming contrast. As if I’d been here for years, and others just decided to drop in from distant waters. An unjustifiable feeling, considering I’ve spent only three months here, but a nice and homey feeling nonetheless.

Most of these visitors had told me of their travel plans – only one did not, and it was wonderfully surreal when she jumped out of thin air in a mall in Mumbai. I can’t say I didn’t have my suspicions of her arrival…but while Pooja may not have caught me entirely unawares, when she did appear, her entrance was no less stunning for the lack of surprise. Her exit was just as swift, since family obligations beckoned, but I’m looking forward to welcoming her to my new hometown of Ahmedabad in a week or two.

Today I got the chance to welcome several others, greeting Pranavmama, Parulmami, Samir and Nikki in our Ahmedabad home when they awoke from their post-international-flight slumber, then picking up Viral from the airport, where he had the look of an American deer in Indian headlights (it’s his first time in India, not counting a childhood visit he doesn’t remember, so the atmosphere was a bit overwhelming). It will be interesting to compare reflections with those recently arrived, to see how the light scatters differently.

Tomorrow morning I'm leaving to go see Delhi, Agra, and Jaipur with family on a quick 3-night trip. In the meantime, I’ll leave you with some laughs - here's a Top 5 List of recent quotables from the locals of India (for full effect, insert desi accent):

5. “I trust men only because I trust God.” (sign inside a Mumbai train station – can't this be read in two different ways?)
4. “Rap…oh, yah…is that where they do the yo-yo-yo?”
3. “You chose to come here, and so you got healing. You chose to go somewhere else, you might have got a pizza.” (healer at pranic healing center, after cleansing my aura)
2. “I run my business without advertisements – it’s all mouth to mouth.”
1. “Relax your lungs. Lose your eyeballs.” (among the stranger instructions from my yoga teacher)

Untitled?

2005-12-12T20:28:00.000+04:30

A few weeks ago I found myself sitting among a small group of painters at Ahmedabad's Kanoria Center for the Arts. The Kanoria Center is a prestigious training ground for talented young artists, who gain access to its facilities through a special six-month fellowship. I had been invited there by Sitanshu Yashachandra, the renowned Gujarati poet (whom I was introduced to by Vikram Uncle in the hopes that I might gain some perspective for my own budding poetic aspirations). Sitanshu Uncle, softspoken and whitebearded, balanced an aura of eastern yogic wisdom with a vocabulary of western intellectualism astonishingly well. He sprinkled poetic insight about him with ease, and the young herd of painters trotted around him like a group of panting puppies waiting to lap up some inspiration. I soon became one of them.

We sat in a small wooden room, canvasses of unfinished paintings (like half-spoken sentences) leaning on the walls. After introductions, Sitanshu Uncle settled his eyes' spotlight on me and said, "Rishi is a poet as well - he writes about the medical experience. Do you happen to remember any of your poems? Please, let us hear them."

In this way I came to be the evening's entertainment program. As I recited my poetry, words (and shirt) dripping with nervousness, I was faced with a dilemma. The poems I chose were all medically oriented, to give justice to Sitanshu Uncle's introduction, yet I was for the first time performing them in front of a non-medical audience from a non-western culture. Would they understand me? Should I explain to them the meanings behind the poems, tell them the stories of the patients who inspired me before spewing forth encrypted rhyme? How could I create a context for what I was about to say?

This is part of a larger dilemma for artists in general. Art is individual expression; yet, those artists who display their works would not do so unless they felt some inner need to connect those expressions with another person. It might be argued that all expression is a manifestation of a desire for connectedness (but that's a whole 'nother blog). However, the only real context an artist is able to give his or her creation is in the form of a Title. How else can a 16th century painter explain his motivations to a 21st century museum patron? That little card beside the canvas, that boldfaced type before the poem, lies in a unique realm of dialogue partly inside and partly outside the domain of the art itself. It's a place for hints, for intimations, and for leading questions. It's a place we go for advice when the connection with the artist eludes us.

I always used to be disappointed, and I suppose even a little peeved, when an artist chose to title his work "Untitled." It seemed to me a cop-out. As if the artist himself couldn't come to terms with the creation, and wouldn't deign to give it a name. A Title is a rich medium of communication - how could someone let go of the opportunity to use it to further the artistic effect? I feel that the best titles are ones that add another dimension to the work, that could live in their own right, and that lead you in new directions of thought. For example, "Nude Descending a Staircase" doesn't do much for me...I could have figured that out on my own, looking at the painting. However, "Bullet With Butterly Wings" (one of my all time favorite song titles) gives new depth to the Smashing Pumpkins track to which it refers. Nowhere in the song will you find the title phrase, and if you were to hear the song without knowing its title, you might come up with a different interpretation of its meaning entirely. The title, therefore, becomes as important as the rest of the work. It is the artist nudging you in the shoulder and saying, "here's a view into my thoughts."

At the Kanoria Center, I got a unique opportunity to initiate this discussion with a captive group of live artists. As they toured us around the complex and showed us their artistic efforts, I asked them what goes into the decision to title a painting "Untitled." One of them gave me a very good explanation - he said that he uses such a non-title when he feels that any additional hints would contaminate the viewer's experience of the piece. An Untitled painting is one that should speak for itself, without the artist complicating brushstrokes with letters. This can be expanded to mean that sometimes context is unnecessary, and perhaps even harmful. Art itself is the way that someone from one culture and period of time can communicate with someone in another. By letting the art speak for itself, you allow the viewer/listener/reader to form their own interpretation of the piece, and in so doing partially relinquish your ownership of it. When you do not seek to sway the direction in which your art leads other people, you let them recreate your work in their own design, using their own imaginations. You let the art provide its own context, and let others provide their own titles. This requires generosity of a very different nature. It's like letting your children go forth into the world and become what they wish to be, instead of seeking to turn them into something you expect.

The pinnacle of human creation is the birth of a child. This is art on a fantastically different level. The creation lives, breathes, becomes. Unlike any painting or poem, it interprets itself and comes up with new meanings that the artists may never expect. And yet, at every birth, parents are put into the strange position of putting a Title such a self-evolving work of art. We give each child a context before the process of self-interpretation begins. We explain the child to the world, give an intimation as to his or her personality before knowing it.

Shakespeare wrote, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other name would smell as sweet." Others disagree. There is a group known as the Kabalarians who insist that there are mathematical properties to our names that help determine our natures and futures in a world where Chaos reigns. Do our names become self-fulfilling prophecies? I'm not quite sure, but I do know that my experience in this world would probably have been different had I been named Yudishvramachandra Shri Popatlal the Seventh. For one thing, schoolkids might have made more fun of me (or, the disturbing thought comes, maybe less!)

Interestingly, cultures each have different ways of naming their newborns. Gujaratis often use the father's name as a child's middle name. Some South Indians use the father's name as the child's last name (I could be wrong about this...many South Indians have explained to me their method of naming, but I must confess continuing ignorance...suffice to say, it's something different). My newest niece has been given the unique name Ice - but since her mother is Gujarati and her father South Indian, no one has yet resolved the dilemma of what the rest of her name should be! Perhaps, she should remain Untitled until she herself can decide.

This, again, is part of a larger discussion. As human works of art, we live, we breathe, we become. We label, and we become comfortable with classifications. We become bound by images of the self. There are many sides of my personality that are withheld from expression due to an image I have come to identify with...the image of the person I expect myself to be...my classification, my self-given Title, which may or may not have something to do with the title given me by my parents. The past few weeks, these thoughts have flung recurring questions at my flickering self-image.

Every experience I have with the arts adds a new aspect to the question. A week ago, I went back to the Kanoria Center and met a sculptor who was kind enough to explain to me the process he undergoes when carving a slab of rock into a human figure. It is a process of transformation, much like the process we go through during our own maturation. Two nights ago, I attended a concert for the winners of Fame Gurukul (an Indian version of American Idol), where crazed fans pushed each other to get closer to their favorite singers. After the concert, I hitched a ride on a scooter to get back to Ahmedabad, ended up making friends with the guy on the scooter, and accepted his invitation to go to a birthday party for one of his friends that night. At the party, I found out that he and his friends are all members of a traveling folk dance group...individual dancers with a group identity. When inside the group, they call each other by nicknames, possibly to preserve the sense that their identities depend upon one another. Outside the group, they are simply different people. Our identities and our labels dance with each other, spin each other round, and teach each other the steps as they go.

So I ask you - how is your self-image affected by the titles you carry? What has your experience been with your name - do you like it, does it ever constrain you, do you ever dissociate from it? If you are an artist, what goes into the process of naming your work? I would really love to hear your answers to any of these questions. It will help me answer the question now flinging itself at my mind - can we ever silence our own labels, and allow ourselves artistic freedom with our continuing self-creation?

On Eating and Social Responsibility

2005-12-03T23:20:00.000+04:30

Indians (and possibly all Asians) are obsessed with feeding their guests. Step into the home of an Indian person and open your mouth, even if only long enough to breathe the spicy air, and it will be tough to shut it again without something being stuffed in. Perhaps a sweet, some chai, even just a cashew must be swallowed before you escape. If you’re Indian yourself, your innate mathematical sense tells you to ask for one spoonful when you really want two, and to eat with one hand, so that the other can play defense against the overweight auntie shoveling more shak onto your yellowing, oil-dribbling plate. There is a powerful sense of obligation in our culture to feed others.

I never realized just how deep-seated this sense was until a few nights ago, when we dined at an all-you-can-eat pizza place. Another pizza came, and the classic struggle began: no, I don’t want more…come on, just take one...no, I’m full…here, I’ll put two on your plate…except instead of family urging family to take the plunge into overeating, the waiter was begging us to eat more. For the life of me, I couldn’t see what he stood to gain by it. He wasn’t even our waiter, so there was no large tip on the horizon, and the restaurant would make more money if we left; yet his cultural instinct was so strong, he wouldn’t take no for an answer, and he kept serving up more slices.

Now if you know me, you know I love food, so it may seem strange that I’m complaining about this. But I’ve come to hate overeating, because of what it does to my health and sense of well-being. I realize that my reputation as a garbage disposal may still be strong in some households, but the past few years have seen me change (dramatically) into an advocate of smaller, more frequent meals. This has meant trouble when we visit relatives in Ahmedabad, since eating less at another’s table is often taken personally. I’ve stuffed myself to bursting point, for no reason other than to make my hosts feel better about themselves. I recall a night many years ago when I was given 5 large sweets after an overindulgent meal, and told by well-meaning relatives that I had to eat them all before leaving the table. I actually resorted to stuffing them into my socks when my relatives weren’t looking, and dumping them out the window once in the safety of my room upstairs.

They probably lay outside for weeks, decomposing into the soil of a country where millions succumb to hunger. Where does this overpowering sense of obligation go when the hungry hold out their hands to us on the street? And why do I get the sense that in many of my extended relatives’ households, they could care less about who I am or what I think, as long as I have something to eat? Does my act of chewing and swallowing absolve them of all familial responsibility to get to know me? Food certainly fills an awkward silence every bit as well as it does an empty stomach.

So I’ve come to dislike it when people say, “eat what’s on your plate, there are people starving in {insert developing country here}.” A fat lot of good it does those people when we eat more than we need. I might as well walk up to one of the starving children in (insert developing country here} and say, “I realize your body’s needs are neglected. Hell, mine are too. I don’t want to blow out my metabolism eating 150% of my daily need, and suffer from obesity later in life. But I take the hit, and I do it to preserve our social structure. You’ll never understand, will you?” (A plea from the bottom of my gut – if you can’t eat everything on your plate, there are options – take it home, give it to a beggar outside, or simply take less the next time around. Please don’t overeat and hurt your own body in a misguided attempt to stop starvation in Somalia.)

All these musings on feeding and hunger led me to be quite surprised when a group of NGO workers in Ahmedabad opened Seva Café. I attended a meeting on one of the debut evenings of the café (way back in October), where passionately service-oriented volunteers discussed the particulars of their new eatery. The concept was this – open a restaurant/café where no one is required to pay for their food. Rather, explain to the guests that whatever they choose to give in return for a meal will help to feed the next person that comes in. So, after every dinner is served, a bill is placed on the table that says “Total: Zero rupees.”

At first the concept startled me – why would so many volunteers dedicated to helping the plight of India’s poor spend all their energy providing food for people who could afford to pay? What was productive about opening a café to serve people like me free of charge? However, I soon witnessed the brilliance of the endeavor. The café creates an atmosphere where the spirit of service comes to life. By relieving you of your monetary obligation for the food you’ve eaten, it leaves you with the feeling that you’d like to do something nice in return for someone else. Perhaps you can pay anyway, which will help finance the meal of the next guy who walks in. Perhaps you can go back and help do dishes (which I did once, only to be kicked out of the kitchen less than an hour later for being too slow!)

In effect, the café turns the idea of obligation onto its head. We’re conditioned to think that if we pay money for a meal, our obligation is done – just as many here seem to think that feeding a relative fulfills the purpose of family ties. But by taking away this reflex, it forces us to imagine what we can do to help others in return for the unexpected gift we have received. Not obligation, but motivation.

The café is located on the fourth floor of the building opposite from the Municipal Market on C.G. Road…a location mostly inaccessible to the poor and the hungry. But while it does not serve the needy directly, it goes a fantastic length to stimulate those of us who may have forgotten that the food we eat is a product of someone’s service to pass that sense of service along to others. Today, the café attracts a wonderful mixture of NGO volunteers, international students, and interested locals, who engage in dialogues of change and take turns helping the place stay alive. I urge those of you coming to Ahmedabad during the winter holidays to show your support, and if you do, call me up, and I’ll be there to join you. Seva Café helps show us that in the end, our responsibility is not to serve food, but to serve each other.

Flex & Flexibility

2005-11-27T22:47:00.000+04:30

Earlier this week I finally did it…I went to C.G. road and for 130 rupees, I bought a basketball. At St. Xavier’s High School, a 10 minute walk from the house, I found a court and invited some of the other NRIs to play. The rims were rusty and netless, but as beautiful as friends in a foreign land. And to our surprise, some locals came to join in! Now, everyone we’d asked had told us that no one plays basketball in Ahmedabad, but suddenly people were showing up from all sides to get in a game. We couldn’t even command the full court, since some hardcore barefoot guys started playing on the other half, and it seemed unwise to challenge them. I learned that this herd of cricket-denouncing misfits plays every day at the school, and I’ve already been back three times this week, ecstatic to be getting some outdoor exercise with my favorite sport. While they’re not exactly the Globetrotters, and lanes and traffic rules don’t apply on the court any more than they do on the street, the competition isn’t that bad. And the comic relief is worth all the unnecessary hacking (when I’m back, I’ll be yelling “ARAY!” to call foul).

Also this week, I began my yoga classes. The instructor comes to the house every morning at 7:45 am, and for an hour, I fumblingly attempt to balance my body’s natural clumsiness. Now, here’s where the contrast hit me hard. On the basketball court, I was outrunning and outjumping everyone. By the end of the second game, my new local friends were begging me to dunk for them and to play for their team in some tournament this December. A group of fairly athletic guys were openly admiring my skills. And yet, every morning, a petite young yoga teacher shows up at the door and utterly humiliates my physical abilities. She effortlessly turns her limbs to rubber, and stifles laughter every time my “tree pose” goes “timber.”

Yesterday, she even saw fit to make the following comment, which you should never say to a guy, unless you happen to be a bigger guy: “your muscles are quite weak.” Apparently yoga teachers don’t care much for the male ego. And while she’s small enough that I could pick her up and toss her into a basket if I wanted, she was right…I am weak, in muscles I never knew I had. Muscles I don’t use every day, neglected ones, rusty as the rims at St. Xavier’s. Muscles that refuse to move now, wondering where I’ve been all these years.

I’ve started to realize that my entire concept of physical fitness needs an overhaul. I’ve always considered myself athletic, and done fairly well in most sports. While I never had bulging biceps or perfect pecks, I used to work out often in college, and was probably more muscular than your average skinny Jain boy. I even took pride in having a six-pack stomach (of course, that’s easy enough to have when you’re so thin your skin is like a layer of saran wrap on your muscles, but I never admitted that until now).

When times got busier in med school, and the gym became a low priority, I always promised myself one day I’d get back into weightlifting and try to regain the pounds I’d lost since I stopped working out. However, doing so would be a continual uphill battle against my genes, my diet, and my lifestyle, which all work to keep me the lanky person you know and love. And I’m forced to wonder, what have I been working toward? To adhere to some abstract western standard of what the male figure should be, when I can’t even stretch my hamstrings to 45 degrees? The message is clear: it’s time to throw in the gym towel, and to fall back on the yoga mat. Time to breathe with rhythm, and to retrain my body towards a new ideal of fitness.

I guess I’ll never be the strong silent type, but I’ll settle for quietly stretchy. And though I’ll never flex huge muscles, I realize it’s unproductive to be working isolated body parts in an attempt to adhere to rigid standards of social appearance. In such matters, one needs to be flexible.

In other news, my mom arrived on Thursday morning, and it’s wonderful to see her again, even though she immediately made me clean my room and comb my hair, and concluded with an encore of reorganizing my closet. I don’t know where anything is anymore, and I feel more at home than ever.

Boundary-Breakers: Belonging in Bombay

2005-11-21T23:42:00.000+04:30

This weekend I visited Bombay, an impromptu trip planned when I received an invite late last week from Anjali’s cousin Seema – she and a friend were planning to explore the city. So I hopped on the overnight Gujarat Mail train towards Mumbai Central; due to my late ticket purchase, I did not have my own sleeping berth, but rather had to share one with an aunty. Yes, that’s right…I shared a small 6 foot by 2.5 foot sleeper bench with some random aunty, my entire body pressed against the mercilessly vibrating metal wall of the train so as not to have any of it pressed against her. Needless to say, I got no sleep, due to discomfort and the fear of being pressed with charges should I so much as move a limb.

Eight eternal hours later, we arrived at Dadar station; I peeled myself from the cabin wall and flopped into the mess of rickshawallas and beggars greeting the train’s arrival. Seema and her friend Inith met me there, and we took a cab over to the Queen’s Necklace area of Worli Seaface, where Seema had managed to score a flat with a sea view.

As we went sightseeing, Seema and I discovered that being American carries a price. When we tried to enter a museum, the doorman peered suspiciously at us, and asked Inith (an Indian native) in Hindi where Seema and I were from. We replied in Gujarati that we were from Ahmedabad, but he flung our flimsy performance away, and marched us over to a police officer standing next to a special ticket booth. Here they asked us for 300 rupees each (the regular ticket price, which we had already paid, was 10 rupees). We refused, and were denied entrance…non-Indians had to pay 30 times the regular cost.

Indignant, we left. The loud and clear implication, later voiced explicitly by Seema’s aunt, was that “no matter how much of the language you speak, you will never be Indian.” Just as I learned when first entering Hong Kong over two months ago, red white and blue somehow emanates from my brown skin like the smell of dollar bills. Everyone wants a sniff. When vendors see an American, even one whose genes have assured him an Indian face and whose ideologies have sprung from the subcontinent, they catch the odor and happily hike their prices. Well-trained beggar children trail behind an American like a tail on a slow-moving comet. We’re not seen as Indian-Americans looking to reconnect with our culture of heritage – in the eyes of the Indian tourism industry, we’re oversized wallets. Belonging only to a global economy. Not really American, not really Indian, but vehicles of currency.

The specious flip side of this coin showed itself the next evening, when we decided to explore Bombay’s nightlife. Inith had other plans, so Seema and I started off with dinner at Indigo, a restaurant in Colaba that caters to a posh crowd. We walked in, and the first person our eyes met was Bollywood actor Rahul Bose, whom I recognized from the recent Hindi film Silsilay. Like the harmonica before an a capella performance, that note set the tone for the rest of the night.

We ate our dinner in the midst of tables of plastic people. The kind who are driven everywhere so they don’t have to step on the filthy street. The kind who use laughter as a social device. The kind whose company we would never be fit to have in our own country. Though the caste system doesn’t operate in the States, the economy operates everywhere, and it was startling to note that the converted dollars in our pockets meant that we were suddenly Upper Class in Bombay. Our dinner menus were personalized with our names. We were called “Sir” and “Madame.” Though the working class of the tourism industry refused to admit us as Indian, this new credit card class was happily accepting us as its own. Of course, the premise behind it was the same – both groups did not see us as people, but smelled our currency.

After a pricey dinner, we walked to the Taj Hotel to go to Insomnia, reputed to be the hottest new dance club in Bombay. Wandering around inside to find the club’s entrance, we spotted a spillage of fancy people through a glass doorway. Checking to see what the hubbub was about, we wandered into their midst, and suddenly Seema was paralyzed. I followed the gaze of her widened eyes, and saw Anil Kapoor, another Bollywood film star, walking away from a guarded door. Seema was shaking with nervous excitement by this point, but since I’m not much of a Bollywood fan, I was only overcome with curiosity – where was he coming from, and how could we get inside?

Now, here’s where our earlier experiences gave me a boost. I somehow became absolutely certain that if we were to try and break our way through the boundaries and into the place Anil Kapoor had just left, no one would stop us. In fact, people would welcome us. Not because movie stars normally welcome random people into their parties, but because the boundaries had already been broken for us by the color of our passports. We had been informed definitively on the streets that we were not Indian, but dollar bills in human form…and the smell of money knows no boundaries.

Buoyed by Plastic Confidence, I convinced Seema that we weren’t going to be dishonorably dishoomed by security guards, and we strolled through three patrolled glass doorways with our heads held high and our noses in the air. Inside at last, we were greeted by two rows of servers with silver platters, offering us fine wines and hors d’oeuvres, calling us “Sir” and “Madame.” We haughtily stepped past them, and into a lush room where the people were as polished as the furniture. Gorgeous people, many of them models of the two classic varieties: Beautiful and Disturbingly Skinny. The media was there, filming their plastic conversations. Full of purposeful laughter, and full of Bollywood (I didn’t recognize anyone, but Seema told me Mini Mathur was there, and a couple of others whose names I don’t remember).

Seema’s nervousness finally turned into a need to go to the bathroom, so she left while I tried to figure out who to mingle with. I decided on a harmless-looking photographer, who told me we were at a Mont Blanc fashion show for the Indian designer Shahab Durazi. Next I spoke with a random guy on a couch, who told me he owns a fashion store (not a clothing store…a fashion store). He asked me who I was, and I told him I was some invitee’s friend from America, and that we had arrived late and had missed the show. His eyes exploded into white. “You missed the show??? You missed EVERYTHING IN LIFE!! How could you miss the show? Shahab Durazi is the best yah, simply the best designer…his colors, his style…last year Aishwarya Rai closed out the show, man…YOU MISSED EVERYTHING IN LIFE!!” The man was obsessed, so I left him. I was just working up the courage to talk to a couple of models sitting at the bar, when Seema came back and said, “you’ll never guess what just happened.”

On her way back from the bathroom, she had accidentally entered the dance club Insomnia from the back door, and gotten in free (it’s usually a 1200 rupee cover charge). She then made sure the doormen recognized her face, and told them she would be back in one minute with her friend. We went back to the hotel’s main lobby, and just then Anil Kapoor walked by again, so we introduced ourselves and I took a picture of him and Seema (I’ll post these pics once she emails them to me).

We searched for and found Insomnia. A sign outside said “Closed To Public For Private Party,” and four doormen stood guard with a large guestlist, checking everyone’s name. But Seema’s ploy worked perfectly, and the two of us walked straight through with confidence, giving a knowing nod to one of the doormen and not deeming to look at any of the others. People with the smell of money on them, getting in for free where they shouldn’t be.

Inside, we discovered it was a pre-wedding dance party for a young couple and all their friends. Now it was my turn to be nervous…pretending to be someone important to get into a celebrity party was one thing, but pretending to be someone’s relative or friend in a close-knit crowd was far trickier. Everyone was greeting long-lost friends with hugs and knowing slaps on the back. We could make up a story, but would it work? I searched my memory of the movie “Wedding Crashers” for inspiration.

But this time, it was Seema’s turn to take the position of confidence. She mingled effortlessly, telling people we had been invited to an exclusive fashion show upstairs and now had the hotel’s permission to check out its other private parties. I left her and wandered around the party. I decided to use a different story, and took the identity of “Samir’s cousin from America”…firstly because it’s a true statement, and secondly because in a crowd that large, there was bound to be more than one Samir, and I could take advantage of the resulting confusion. People believed it, and when they asked whether I was bride’s side or groom’s side, I answered randomly. But late into the night I had grown tired of creating new identities, and I finally told a close friend of the groom, “I’m no one. I crashed your party. It’s fun.” He was too drunk to make much of it, so I left him stumbling and enjoyed some chocolate mousse served in a crystal glass. I still didn’t know who was getting married, but they had to be pretty wealthy to be able to rent out Bombay’s hottest new club in a 5 star hotel on a Saturday night, and pay for everybody’s drinks.

I savored the mousse, and marveled at what had taken place. In one crazy weekend, we had managed to do what many people who live their entire lives in Bombay never get to do. We crossed boundaries. We went from markets on the street to parties with movie stars, and the wealthiest of wedding functions. (In fact, Seema’s mingling at Insomnia had been so successful, that by the end of the night she got us both invited to the actual wedding!) The next day, Inith was speechless as we told her the story, and she rightly commented that most Indian youth who dream of meeting the stars never do. But we, scented human dollar bills, had the right-priced ticket to get wherever we wanted to go.

I asked myself – what am I? The entire weekend, I had pretended to be different things, trying not to be an NRI for the sake of museum tickets, gladly being an NRI for the sake of upper class parties. I’ve never felt truly American in the U.S., and now on the other side of the globe I find no one believes I’m truly Indian. I wondered…as I dance between my two cultures, will I ever get the steps right, or will I continue to be off-beat in both America and India? And does my perceived culture change internationally, owing to the inequalities of the global economy? Bombay’s lower and middle classes didn’t accept me as one of their own, because NRIs are not “true Indians.” Bombay’s upper class let me in not because of the color of my skin, or the hue of my spirit, but because of the green in my wallet and the white in my lies. Perhaps being able to easily cross boundaries brings with it a price…where do you really belong?

P(ee) is for Professionalism

2005-11-16T23:44:00.000+04:30

Here in India, two things get the job done – connections and presentation. You can’t get anywhere without connections…knowing the right person is the only way to get through the door. Once inside, it’s all about how you present yourself. Being from America carries more weight than it ought to, but is no substitute for walking into a room with a commanding professional presence. Whether you’re selling something or trying to conduct research, do it in style and people will listen.

This morning I had the connections. A friend of a friend who knew a friend that could do a favor. So walking into that nursery school, I was confident that the principal would at least hear me out, and not just humor me until I left (as others have done). When I met her, she was all ears, and even told me that in a couple of minutes when her quarterly parent-teacher meeting began, I could give a short talk on autism and then hand out my forms for everyone to fill out. This was a golden opportunity to have research subjects cornered, and get some good work done.

But nature was calling, so I asked first if I could use the bathroom. The school was situated in the basement of the principal’s house, so she pointed the way upstairs and told me to hang a left at the dining room. After answering nature, I leaned over to flush. It’s important here to note that toilets in India don’t have Western flushing mechanisms. Commonly, there are two knobs on the wall to one side of the toilet, and you simply pick one and hope it does the trick. I’m sure there’s a method to it, but I have never bothered to take the moment of mental exertion it would require to figure that out.

So I picked one, and cautiously rotated it…but caution could not help me. The toilet was a bidet, and straight from the mouth of the bowl spewed forth a concentrated stream of water aimed directly at the right leg of my pants. When it collided with khaki cotton, it left a damp oval running from the middle of my thigh down to below the knee. A dark brown lake in the middle of light tan pants. Ripe for assumptions.

There wasn’t a hand towel in the bathroom. I opened the door and stepped into the dining room on a desperate quest to find one. As soon as I came out, I was greeted by a grandmotherly figure, who shot me an extremely un-motherly look. Centuries of parental disapproval focused in her narrowed eyes; glaring at me, she barked, “WHO IS THIS??” As if expecting me to answer in the third person. I almost obliged and said, “This is Rishi,” but curiously opted to say nothing and simply bolted down the staircase instead.

Back in the basement, a gathering had formed. Parents of all shapes and sizes, looking at the young man who’d burst in on the meeting. An introduction by the principal – “Everyone, this is Rishi, he has come from America to speak with you” – announced the beginning of my talk, and the principal beckoned me to the front of the room.

If you’ve ever attempted to walk while keeping your legs together, you know it’s awkward, to say the least. Downright difficult, in fact. It made the slow-stepping stroll from back door to center stage a tad…tedious. And though I tried to Charlie Chaplin my way through, there was nothing I could do to hide the inevitable object of everyone’s attention. And you know what followed. Barely veiled grins danced on mothers’ faces. An eyebrow reached new heights on the principal’s forehead.

An ABC chart hung on the wall…“A” is for Apple, “B” is for Ball. “P” is for Professionalism, I thought. Presentation. It’s all about how you walk into a room.

Conversations with Children

2005-11-13T15:43:00.000+04:30

Kids have such incredible shock value. At any moment, anything can come out of their mouths, absolutely unexpectedly. It makes me wonder – at what age do we stop saying what we mean, and start candy-coating our thoughts for public consumption? Recently, I met for the first time three nieces of mine – two are twins, the third their cousin sister, all about 7 to 8 years old. One of the twins seemed very shy; every time I looked at her, she would freeze and cover her face, turn her back to me and steal anxious glances to ensure I had put my attention elsewhere before she moved on. This continued for most of the evening, until I finally asked her, “why are you hiding from me?”
Giggles.
“Really, are you that shy?” I asked, trying to sound harmless.
Then her answer came, and, I must admit, took me aback.
“Because you look funny.”
“…What?”
“Your hair. It is like a joke.”
“My hair?”
More giggles.
I looked to the others for some explanation. The eldest of the three diplomatically took center stage and offered to translate for her younger cousin.
“What she means is, you are like a joker. Your look is very funny, no? (She asked this as if the answer were undisputable.) So she does not want to look at you.”
No giggles at this point. They weren’t teasing me, but earnestly trying to inform me of the oddity of my appearance. Three heads nodded dutifully.
When I finally looked in a mirror to try to see myself through a child’s eyes, I saw that I had forgotten to comb my hair after my afternoon nap. Of course, it wasn’t all that different from my usual look, so not much comfort was to be found in that, but I had to laugh. I had never been put so soundly in my place, and that at the hands of people whose combined ages did not add up to mine! I wondered – would any adult have been able to put it to me so easily?

Another little girl surprised me a couple of weeks ago. Once in a while I go to the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts to catch a dance performance or play. Usually I’m by myself, since my grandparents don’t like the uncomfortable concrete Greek-style seating, but I don’t mind – in med school, I had to learn to be okay with going to movies and plays by myself, as it’s sometimes hard to get people to go out on your schedule. So there I was, sitting in the third row alone, when a young girl came and sat next to me. She didn’t hesitate with an air of Requesting Permission, as an adult would when sitting next to someone in an almost empty theater. I looked around for her parents, but didn’t see anyone who seemed concerned about losing a child. She was looking curiously at me, so I struck up conversation. I learned that she was 11 years old, and a bharatnatyam student. Finally, I had to ask –
“Did you come here by yourself?”
She didn’t respond, but busied herself with putting chapstick on her lips. I let it go.
“So are you going to be a dancer when you grow up?”
“No, I want to be an all-rounder when I grow up.”
“An all-rounder? What’s that?” I asked, clueless, like most adults.
“Someone who can do everything. I want to be able to mountain bike, and dance, and paint, and play music. Then, once I can do all that, I will become a scientist for NASA.”
And just like that, she broke down traditional tunnel-visioned ambition, and gave me what had to be the wisest answer I’ve ever heard to that common question. Of course – why should we only be one thing when we grow up? Is that what being an adult means? Narrowing ourselves?
The show started, so we watched in silence, and when it ended she took off running without saying bye, leaving the chapstick in lieu of a glass slipper. The mystery broke down outside the theater, where her parents waited for her, and told her to “thank the nice man” when I returned her lip balm.

Finally, I know what I want to be when I grow up: an all-rounded joker (with funny hair). I don’t think you need a degree for that – I think you just need to have children.

Traffic on the Road to Happiness

2005-11-08T00:02:00.000+04:30

Mount Abu is named after Arbud, a mighty mythological snake that helped to create the landscape upon request from the great saint Vashishth. All the 330 million gods of the Hindu pantheon are said to have frequented this mountain, and Mahavir Swami once gave it his blessing. The only hill station in Rajasthan, it was once a summer resort for Rajput kings, then a sanatorium for British troops before independence, and is now a popular spot for tourists. My grandparents took their honeymoon here, spending their nights in the garage of the local hospital (thanks to family connections with one of the doctors there…my grandfather, at that time, had only 15 rupees to his name). And now, half a century later, I have arrived. (dramatic pause) And there was much feasting.

Mt. Abu is an especially popular spot during Diwali, when holiday-happy Gujaratis pour across the border into Rajasthan to escape Gujarat’s Prohibition laws. Gujarat is a dry state; and it’s a good thing, because I can’t imagine what the drivers in Ahmedabad would be like if they were drunk too. (Actually, taking a step into reality for a moment, no one pays attention to Prohibition. The liquor smuggling trade in Gujarat is huge, and supported by politicians who need the booze to throw large campaign parties where people conveniently forget what they promise. Plus, wavering on a platform is normal if you’ve had something to drink, right? Imported liquor is actually cheaper here than in other states, since it’s not subject to government taxes. Still, for the average tourist, bars are a big attraction of the holy mountain.)

But I digress. On our first day in Abu, we visited Sunset Point (later we figured out we got a better sunset view from our hotel room) and Nakki lake (said to have been carved by the fingernails, or nakk, of a god). The magnificence of the scenery was murdered by the masses of people stepping all over it. My grandparents, who have visited the mountain often, say they’ve never seen such a rush of people in Abu. Add the fact that Indians don’t have much of a Western concept of “personal space,” and you get the hot, crowded idea.

Next day, we headed out in the morning for the Delwara Temples, Abu’s main Jain attraction. These beautifully carved temples are studded with awe-inspiring marble pillars and tiles, chiseled with religious fervor into stories of Jain lore. They were built in the 11th to 13th centuries, and other than being partially destroyed by a Muslim army in 1311, have withstood the test of time. (Renovations were made after the Muslim army left. They had broken the noses off many of the sculptures, so now what you see are repaired carvings in two different colors of stone – aging gods and elephants sporting marble nose-jobs.)

I stood before an idol of Neminath bhagwan and prayed. In my head, I remembered the words of my grandfather earlier in the day – Love everyone. We should try to love everyone in life, even those who do wrong. As I prayed, a crowd tried to get past me deeper into the temple. Someone bumped my shoulder. Another knocked my folded hands apart. Love everyone. No one said “excuse me” or acknowledged that they had interrupted my prayer. Love EVERYONE, I thought forcefully. A frustrating reality on display: it’s easier to love all humanity when you aren’t faced with large crowds of it. Maybe that’s why monks have to seclude themselves to reach enlightenment. Maybe that’s why mountains used to be a good place to find enlightenment, before people went blasting roads into them and bringing the family.

Outside again, we visited Achalgar, where a short hike takes you to another temple overlooking the lush green hills and scummy green lakes of the landscape. We negotiated with a cow for our parking space, and after some nudging he grudgingly trudged over a few feet to allow us room. When we returned from the hike, he was still there, staring unpleasantly; it seems I had misunderstood our agreement. To appease him, I offered him the rest of my smoked cob of corn, which he popped like a pill, closing the deal. He then moved over and allowed us to drive away.

The rest of the trip was filled with relaxation, pedal-boats on Nakki lake, hikes up to Toad Rock (see pic), and time spent reading books under trees filled with white-haired monkeys. I’ll end with a memory I’d like to keep. On our last evening, we rested in the hotel, playing 24-card rummy and watching the sun drown in fire behind the mountain. As the sun breathed its last, my grandfather said, “Isn’t it amazing? The earth rotates around the sun…we’re always turning about an axis…and yet, not a drop of water from the oceans falls. How can it be? Not even a single drop falls into space. How can such a simple thing as gravity do this?”

At first, his remark sounded a little ridiculous. Physics principles plodded through my head. Well, gravity is a powerful force, equal to the… Luckily, I shut up before I began, and after the last drop of sun had fallen from the world, I gazed at the look of wonderment on Pappa’s face. He, a man who has studied science all his life, was truly astonished by the sight outside our window. He looked like a little kid who had just opened a birthday present. So I threw my physics principles where they belonged. I suddenly felt a step closer to happiness. And I hope one day, decades from now, I will look out my window and at least for a moment forget all that I’ve learned from books…and in that moment, I’ll ask no one in particular – “Isn’t it amazing? That the oceans haven’t fallen into the sky?”

On the drive away from Mt. Abu, groups of monkeys lined the exiting road to bid farewell to the holiday traffic and to accept biscuits tossed from car windows. I can’t help but imagine that the Hindu gods who frequent the mountain were on their way up as we were on our way down. On their way back to reclaim their quiet haven. After all, who needs congestion on the road to happiness?

Explosions of Enlightenment

2005-11-01T23:44:00.000+04:30

Diwali – The Festival of Lights. Like Navratri, a festival with many different meanings and manifestations, a tapestry of India’s multicolored threads. In Gujarat, Diwali honors Lakshmi, the Goddess of Wealth; here chopda pujans (literally, “book worships”) are held to herald a prosperous new financial year, as businesses close their yearly books of accounts and open fresh ones. (Of course, in modern times, many people are using CD-ROMs in the ceremonies rather than books, since most of their accounts are on the computer.) In north India, Diwali celebrates Rama’s return to Ayodhya after defeating Ravana. On this day, Rama was coronated King and thousands of lamps were lit across the land, symbolically banishing the dark days of Rama’s exile. And on this day in Jain history, Mahavir Swami attained nirvana. Diwali thus signifies enlightenment and renewal. During these holidays, people clean their homes and light diyas, preparing for a fresh start. They buy new clothes and feed each other sweets.

And they go deaf. Because enlightenment is not a quiet affair. It occurs in the sky, in momentary fire-flowers that slowly dribble to earth. It occurs in small alleys, in explosive sprays of combustion. It goes BANG.

As each night falls, a car backfires. A rifle blasts. Then another, and another…endless rebellious rifles taking potshots at Maruti sedans. You begin to worry. You heard about the explosions in Delhi; no one is safe from terror. Loud BANGs in the night could mean something. Flashes of light coming through the dusty window don’t seem so innocent. For a moment, it seems like it is reminding you of a memory you do not have. Telling you what it feels like to be at war. To sit inside your room and try to stop your heart from jumping every time something goes BANG.

Then a child laughs, and you remember – people are simply busy enlightening themselves outside. Ha. You go on the terrace of your brick tower of a house, and watch as kids light fuses and scurry away, squint your eyes in anticipation as the atmosphere takes a colorful and noisy beating. Then you duck, because a kid just chucked a fire-flower in your direction, and it fizzed to a stop just a few feet above your head before dying in the branches of a nearby (flammable) tree. You open your mouth to yell at him, then stop the hypocrisy with a memory, one that is actually yours – you and your brother, young, in India, setting off rockets from an empty Thumbs Up bottle on this same street. One of the rockets flew upward and then curved sharply to the left, flying straight into the balcony of a neighboring apartment in a flash of blue light. The only things faster than the rocket were your legs as you fled the crime scene. Ha.

You eat another sweet, and wonder how people can happily shop and blow things up, when just a few days ago several people died in a Delhi shopping market with a giant BANG.

And you pat yourself on the back for packing earplugs when you came to India, because you may need them now. Because the firecrackers of today are louder than the ones you remember as a child. You used to hold sparklers, waving them to form letters of fire in the air, like a devilish, almost-literate sprite. Now people buy “Time Bombs,” which create noise levels of 86.7 decibels, when the “scientifically permissible” noise level to prevent damage to the human ear is 75 dB. And Time Bombs are the quietest of Diwali’s most popular sellers; some firecrackers create sound waves of 125 dB – louder than a rock concert – all concentrated in one brief BANG a few feet from a child’s ear. They make noises that make you feel, for a moment, like there’s a war going on outside.

One ENT surgeon in the Times of India said that he gets 10 new cases of hearing loss every Diwali. 120 dB, he claims, can blow a hole in your eardrum; however, the Supreme Court of India has deemed anything up to 125 dB “legal.” A recent research study shows that Indians become hard of hearing an estimated 10 to 15 years earlier than is expected based on data on aging in other countries.

You notice your grandmother watching TV. The volume is turned up so loud that your earplugs seem like a good idea even inside the house, and you realize that no one is as disturbed by the BANGs outside as you are.

Because modern enlightenment is not a quiet affair. It doesn’t smell very nice, either…but there are people working to change that. “Green firecrackers” hit the market this year, advertising lower levels of smoke and pollution. They match the new Green Rickshaws, the ones with CNG painted on them in white block letters, boasting the use of Compressed Natural Gas rather than less air-friendly petrol. Made by people who value eardrums and noses over enlightenment.

Through all the colorful and noisy beatings, and in spite of sobering newspaper articles, the atmosphere retains a festive smile. It looks like Christmas in New York, the way all the buildings and trees on C.G. road now have decorative lights outlining them. And family keeps stopping by, to engage in games of “how much can we make you eat?” Yesterday Bhanumummy and I made a Rangoli, from colored powders we’d bought from a street vendor (see pic). My first attempt at one – even as a child, I could never color completely inside the lines on paper, and using powder on the floor didn’t make it any easier. But our multicolored powder tapestry now proudly decorates the entrance to the house.

It shows a peacock, in honor of the gorgeous birds that strut the campus of Gujarat University when we take pre-sunset walks. I’ve often stood mesmerized by these creatures, especially one recent day when a male spread its feathers in full flutter to attract a nearby female (see pic), who wasn’t nearly as impressed as I was. In fanned-out glory, his feathers reached a height of almost six feet. Yesterday, I was almost tempted to pluck one of the feathers from a nearby male, just to hold it and see it up close – but that would be cruel, so I kept walking. A few minutes later, on the opposite side of campus, a man in a white kurta came up to me and handed me a peacock feather! Flashing a yellow-toothed smile, he laughed and just walked away. As if he had come specially to reward me for not taking feathers into my own hands only moments earlier.

Later, in a dream, I imagined a peacock exploding – BANG. Colors everywhere. A surprised and naked peacock watching hopelessly as its beautiful feathers scattered in the wind and dribbled down to earth. Then, from the bushes, an army of yellow-toothed men in white kurtas scampered to collect the fallen treasures, and proceeded to hand them to foreign students who happened to be walking nearby. Foreign students who harbored secret desires to own peacock feathers.

The once-proud feather now decorates the entrance to my room. It still quivers from the explosion, and shimmers with blue-green enlightenment.

Day after tomorrow, we leave for Mount Abu, where we will stay for three nights. I’ll tell you all about it when we return. In the meantime, if you haven’t already, you can check out the pictures from the past month, recently posted to my Ofoto site (email rishiblogpics@hotmail.com, password blogpics). Saal Mubarak!

The Incalculable Wisdom of Simplicity

2005-10-28T22:15:00.000+04:30

To give you fair warning, the following is a sort of raw trip (read: philosophical rant) into the subject that’s dominated my mind the last two days. The account is kind of big and clumsy, and probably full of errors and contradictions…but then, so am I, and you all put up with me.

In a poetry class I took in college, we were taught to avoid clichés in our writing. At all costs, we were to refrain from using phrases from pop culture (or even ancient culture) – neither Seinfeld nor Confucius should be found in the middle of our verses. Our professor regarded clichés as if they were cockroaches scrambling down an otherwise decent page. I’ve begun to notice that many people in academia denounce clichés as trite, overused, unsophisticated…unintelligent. This confuses me, since clichés have withstood the test of time and therefore must carry something of value. But for poetry’s sake, for individuality’s sake, I denounced them too (nevermind the irony of that).

Let’s switch gears for a moment. Why did I start thinking about all this? It started when I became impatient. The first school to return my autism questionnaires had returned less than half of what I had given them, and not all of the forms were filled out properly, meaning I couldn’t use them for my data. The next school returned only a third of what I had given. A familiar churning happened in my stomach, one I thought I had left behind when I took a break from school. Frustration spoke – how am I going to get this project done? Things aren’t working according to plan. Nothing is efficient in India. Not even me. I haven’t even started my yoga classes yet, and almost two months have already gone by. Didn’t I say I was going to be committed to changing myself for the better? Why am I not trying hard enough?

I sat down and miserably listened as the churning happily told me that leaving America didn’t mean leaving stress. The terrible familiarity of the feeling struck me. I was used to this. Long nights spent at the hospital being a few minutes behind schedule to see a dozen patients…getting that paper in at the last minute…sneaking in lunch when I could hide in the stairwell and eat whatever I’d been hiding in my white coat pocket. Stress hasn’t left me entirely in India, because it’s tough to run away from something you’ve internalized.

A realization was upon me – my life to this point has been toyed with by the twin mental constructs of Desperation and Efficiency. I’ve spent much of my life searching for efficiency…how much food can I stuff in my mouth before I go out to play? How quickly can I finish my homework? What’s the best way to memorize two thousand facts for the boards? The urge for efficiency inevitably leads to a subtle background desperation, which helps fuel efficiency and thus can be viewed as adaptive (from a very western mechanistic point of view). So I let this urge grow. I worked fast and hard at everything. Whenever I met with success, part of me knew it was because of the twin constructs that lived inside. I accepted them, and saw myself as a more effective person for doing so. Desperately Efficient. Efficiently Desperate.

Our educational system, indeed our society as a whole, tends to encourage such behavior. People who engage in it are seen as successful and intelligent, to be able to handle such complexity in life. However, in much of human endeavor, webs of complexity end up finding direction and usefulness only when they produce simplicity.

For example, take science, and its attempt to understand matter. At one time, understanding the material world was simple. Things existed as themselves – a table was a table, a chair a chair. Then we looked deeper, and someone had the nerve to say that all matter is made of indivisible units called atoms. This complicated things, and led to a series of desperate calculations and experiments, which brought confusion and was seen as quite intelligent. However, the confusion eventually gave birth to a new simplicity – these atoms each have neutrons, protons, and electrons in certain simple configurations that we can describe with whole numbers and little arrows. Peace, mystery solved. But someone intelligent delved deeper, and that simplicity was challenged – there were quarks, leptons, other subatomic particles hiding under the carpet. More desperate calculations ensued. Finally, an idea to bring simplicity back – don’t worry, it’s all simple in the end, all particles are just different manifestations of the same psychotically vibrating superstrings. That’s it, strings, and that’s why the table is a table and you are you. This is supposed to be close to the Unified Theory of Everything that physicists are trying to find, but I’ve got a sneaky feeling that someone intelligent is going to shake things up, and we’ll be hopelessly lost in the intricacies again.

What I’m trying to illustrate is that many things progress in waves of complexity and simplicity. Simplicity exists, but is inevitably challenged by a problem; complexity is used to tackle the problem, and if the endeavor is successful, simplicity may rise again. Complexity seems to be tied culturally to intelligence and individuality (and therefore to Desperately Efficient behavior). Simplicity is tied culturally to wisdom. When we engage in complexity, we distinguish ourselves as intelligent individuals, but the danger here is that we may forget that the end goal of it all is simplicity. We may come to highly value, as a society, the very complexity which makes us desperate inside for resolution. We may encourage it, and internalize it, to the point that we actually denounce what is simple and wise in the world as being, of all things, “unoriginal.”

Intelligence is quite a circuitous route to simplicity (notice how I’m taking forever to make my point). It’s interesting to note how these ideas are coded in our language. When describing someone, the very word “simple” can be used to mean “dumb.” Arguments are easy to criticize if they’re too “simplistic.” It’s also interesting to see how these ideas have manifested themselves in literature and in folklore. We seem to have a sense that wisdom often comes from those on the margins of society, from such (cliché) character types as the wise old hermit in the forest or the unlikely poor peasant in the marketplace. From uneducated people who do not engage in our complex societal games, people who do not constantly seek to distinguish themselves from others, we are reminded of the common wisdom that binds us all. They challenge us and make us uncomfortable, so we both revere (in the case of monks and saints) and denounce (in the case of the socially marginalized) those who do not participate in our convolutions. Those who have their own solutions, and who may reach wisdom through a more direct and simple path. Those who, unfathomably, do not seem desperate like we often do.

Have you ever spoken to a psychotic person? (Stop thinking that, I didn’t mean me.) The unnerving thing about conversing with a psychotic is the under-your-skin feeling that they know something you don’t. That they have access to a realm beyond your understanding and are empowered by it. We fear that while we can intelligently denounce them as crazy and hide behind our textbooks, we cannot so easily say that we are wiser than they. A voice inside us says, this is someone who doesn’t even play the game…so why does it seem like he’s winning?

I’ve been noticing that inside, what I really value is wisdom. What I want from my life is inner growth, but when you try to accomplish this in the same way you accomplish things in school and at work, it fails. Desperation and Efficiency are not necessary, and indeed harmful. Success, in the way we often define it, doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if I haven’t been changing or growing efficiently. (If Gujarati takes a long time for me to learn, if I haven’t begun yoga yet, if schools don’t return my forms.) By living, by experiencing, we all do it in our own way, and this is something we share in common.

If we do choose to play society’s games along the way, we can help ourselves by remembering to listen to the voices of the margin, the voices of the inside, of philosophy and wisdom. Wisdom says that the churning in my stomach is pointless (insert timely clichés here: Life is a journey, and we should enjoy it…the results are not as important as the process.) Wisdom takes away our originality and makes us express ourselves in “trite” clichés that reveal our fundamental connection to the rest of humanity. It takes away our desperation to be something more, or something different, and shows us that we are exactly that which we rarely think of ourselves as being. That the answer was simple all along.

My favorite quotation is by T.S. Eliot: We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

In the beginning, there is simplicity. We may engage in complexity to live in this sometimes ridiculous and sometimes fabulous world of ours, but in the end, all our endeavors shall return us to simplicity’s cradling hands. And we shall know ourselves for the first time.

Top Ten List - Daily Things in Ahmedabad That Make Me Smile

2005-10-24T15:31:00.000+04:30

In no particular order…have you ever tried to rank things that make you happy? It’s harder than it seems at first, and there’s not much point to it anyhow. About as much point to it as writing a top ten list in no particular order.

10. Bhanumummy calling Shankar – my grandmother’s voice booms through the walls to call our servant Shankar, and always, from behind some unexpected doorway or out of the pantry, will come his loyal and constant reply – “Eh, ha?” I need to start answering the phone like that…“Eh, ha?”

9. Animals – the black-on-black silhouette of a bat coasting above the trees at night. Lizards perched tensely next to the tube light. The incomprehensibly pleased look on a camel’s face amidst human street pollution. Frogs, who convince you they’re not rocks by jumping suddenly away.

8. Street vendor man – don’t know what to call him. Don’t know how to describe him. (Never seen him.) But every day his voice comes through the windows, in a crescendo yelp – “Eeeeoooooooooooooooooooop!” Don’t know what he’s saying, but people must be buying it.

7. Garam roti – ghee-shiny, placed double-folded on your plate even when you can’t eat any more.

6. Bhanumummy smiling – every morning when I wake up and come downstairs for breakfast, she looks up from her newspaper and smiles as if the day has now truly begun. I can’t tell you how good that feels.

5. Pappa shaving at the table – you knew this would be on here. I finally asked him why he does it, and his explanation is worth saving for posterity – “You see, everything in life has tension. There should be no tension. Everything should be done with relaxation, stress-free. So I enjoy shaving like this, sitting down comfortably.” It’s true, isn’t it? Even the smallest of daily routines can bring stress if we let it, but can bring peace if we make it.

4. Evening walks with Pappa – Sometimes philosophy and news are the subject of conversation, and sometimes silence is just as good. On occasion, a peacock will disagree with our musings and squeal at us.

3. Dessert (pronounced “desert” in desi) – everything’s eggless here, and there’s a Cookie and Brownie Festival at the café right next to our house. ‘Nuff said.

2. Emails from family and friends – yes, I miss you all.

1. Quiet time – it’s been a while since I’ve spent so much quality time with myself. I’m a rather strange and interesting person, it turns out. Even 15 minutes of quiet introspection at the end of the day can bring appetizing tastes of that elusive thing called self-awareness. You should try it sometime, you may be surprised by who’s in there.

A Phone Conversation

2005-10-20T17:18:00.000+04:30

"Hello?"
"Yes, your good name is Rishi?"
"Yes."
"My grandson goes to Sunshine Nursery School. He brought home a form with him about autism. Your name is here on it, so I thought I'd call up and ask you."
"Thank you for calling. I'm glad to answer any questions you have."
"What is this autism?"
"It's a developmental disorder in childr-"
"My grandson doesn't have it."
"Oh...yes."
"He is an exceptionally brilliant child. So, why are you sending this form home with him?"
"You see, I'm working on a project-"
"He knows multiplication. He can multiply the numbers. You are a Jain, yes?"
"Yes."
"You must be Deravasi Jain, going to temple. He has memorized his prayers. Perhaps you also have memorized prayers."
"Um..yes. Maybe I can help you understand my project. I don't mean to imply that anything is wrong with your child, but there may be childr-"
"He is an exceptionally brilliant child, you should not be asking us such questions."
"I'm sorry if I offended you. I'm glad to hear your grandson is doing well, and I have no reason to suspect anything is wrong with him."
"You are a psychiatrist?"
"I'm a medical stu-"
"I know psychiatrists. My cousin is a psychiatrist in U.S. only. In New York."
"That's nice."
"Then he moved to Los Angeles. Pranav."
"Pranav? But...he's my uncle!"
"He's your uncle?? He says Pranav is his uncle! What about Bindi?"
"She's my mother."
"He says Bindi is his mother! Bapray! Then you are Neel?"
"No, I am Rishi."
"He's Neel! You remember me? From Rajkot. I was at your uncle's wedding, beta!"
"Oh."
"Listen. Let me help you with this project of yours. Give me your forms, and I will send them to other people's children."

Bewildered by the Universe of Blogs

2005-10-17T16:09:00.000+04:30

I’ve been writing this blog for about a month and a half, but honestly had not taken much time to skim other people’s blogs until tonight, when for some reason I’ve gone surfing. Browsing people’s blogs from around the world, I feel strangely like I’m window-shopping; and on display are not manikins with pricey layers of cloth, but personalities – not for sale, yet seeking attention nonetheless, through that desperate medium of expression, words. I’m awestruck and penniless. Suddenly I’m worried. Each person here has a depth that their words struggle to show…how many people that I’ve known in my lifetime have had such revealing words hidden inside (or gleaming secretly in cyberspace), whose depth I’ve never felt? How many lifetimes would it take to feel? I’m momentarily overcome with fear that one lifetime may be sufficient to scratch a thousand surfaces, but only enough to plunge deeply into a single soul – some seek their own through spirituality, some seek another’s through love. Many windows, one mirror. But how is one to choose?

(By the way, instead of continuing my binge-and-purge blogging style, in which I occasionally spew forth a few days’ worth of experience, I’ve decided to try the smaller-more-frequent-meal method – text-bites. This way, things may be more…digestible. And it gives room to write random thought-morsels like what's above and below.)

Today I bought some Indian clothes from a shop on C.G. road. When I left, I realized that the clerk had made a mistake, and I still owed him 60 rupees. First feeling: happiness. Next feeling: slight tinge of guilt, for aforementioned happiness. Third feeling: resolution, by instinctively deciding to play Robin Hood and offer the mistakenly acquired money to a beggar on the street. Then, feelings stopped and mind kicked in…I’m not Robin Hood…Robin Hood was poor himself, and he took money from the rich and offered it to the poor. I’m not poor, but here I’m taking money from the rich and choosing where it will go…if I’m going to give charity, shouldn’t I give my own money instead of making that decision for a presumably honest businessman? It was my choice to spend that 60 rupees in the shop, which I could have chosen to give charitably in the first place, rather than waiting for a calculation error to stimulate my sense of goodwill. But through it all, that nagging feeling that it would feel damn good to give 60 rupees of a successful shopowner’s money to that kid across the way whose skin has turned the same color as the street from years of being one with it. I’d like your opinion – what would you have done? And a related but different question – what’s the right thing to do?

(Another by the way...a couple of people have mentioned being hesitant to leave comments on the blog, since anyone can read them...but it's more fun for me if this blog creates a dialogue, so if comments are not your thing, you can email me any thoughts you have at my regular address or at rishiblogpics@hotmail.com).

Nine Craaaaazy Nights!

2005-10-15T01:30:00.000+04:30

Navratri is a festival with many meanings. Literally, it means “nine nights,” and on these nights many dance with a fervor that can border on hysteria. Religiously, explanations vary – the most prevalent concept involves the Goddess Durga, or Amba, also known as Mataji, or “mother.” Legend tells of a time when the gods were all driven from heaven by Mahishasura, the buffalo-demon; the gods fused their energies to form Mahadevi Durga, who was a manifestation of Shakti, the infinite energy. The Mother Goddess challenged and defeated Mahishasura in a nine-night battle, thus restoring order to heaven and the universe. During Aarthi, the prayer that precedes and sometimes concludes the festivities during each night of Navratri, we chant “Jayo, Jayo, Ma Jagadumbeh,” or (very loosely translated) “We bow to you, Mother of the world.”

However, many different conceptions exist. Some break the nine nights down into thirds, where the first three nights are devoted to Goddess Parvati, the next three to Goddess Lakshmi, and the final three to Goddess Sarawati. Another theory says that it took Ram nine nights to defeat Ravana, and that Dussehra, the tenth day which marks the end of the festival, celebrates his victory. Whatever the original explanation for Navratri was, it seems clear that the festival has attained such status that its meaning may vary from region to region, person to person, and yet still retain its undeniable importance.

For most of the young generation in Ahmedabad, Navratri means nine nights of partying, staying out late, and ditching school the next day. It means expensive clothing and makeup (not just for women, as metrosexuality would have it). And it means letting loose, in many different ways – which sparked the Supreme Court to issue a deadline for all loudspeakers to shut off at 10 pm, and various NGOs to promote HIV prevention by passing out condoms at the larger events and nearby hotels.

The main form of dance is garba, which, according to an article I just read, means “womb,” and is thought to have originally been a fertility dance performed only by women dancing in a circle with earthen pots on their heads (nowadays, it’s for both sexes, and you only see the pots in the villages and slums). Raas, which is performed with decorated sticks called dandiya, is popular in the U.S. but has become “out of fashion” in India – no one cares for it here, and it is rarely seen. In the U.S., we don’t dance for nine nights straight, but for a few weekends in a row; and rather than stomp around outdoors, we dance mostly in the gyms of nearby universities. I’ve always been eager to see how Navratri is done in the motherland, and this year I’ve finally gotten my chance. Every night after I went out to a garba, I came home and wrote a few lines about it – so for your reading pleasure, here’s a real-time account of my nine crazy nights!

Night 1: Went to Indrapras Towers, Rajumama’s house. The Supreme Court had just announced that it had relented and changed the 10 pm “no loudspeaker” deadline to midnight. Newspapers were abuzz with excitement, and filled with articles about “anti-Romeo police” who were to stop sexual harassment at garbas and private detectives who were hired by local parents to spy on their kids, ensuring they did not engage in taboo premarital sex. I was all decked out in Indian clothes, ready to dance. But to my surprise, hardly anyone was at the garba; it didn’t get going until 11 pm even though it closed at midnight, and everyone there was in American clothes. It was the worst garba I’ve ever seen. I learned today that everyone thinks of the first couple nights as just a warm-up for the rest of the festival, and no one’s going to waste their best clothes or dance moves on a warm-up.

Night 2: I decided to get a haircut today, as I was starting to grow fuzzy. After the barber figured out that I meant “slope” when I told him to give me a fade, he ended up doing a decent job. Not nearly as scary as the time many years ago when Neel and I got a haircut here and the guy busted out a gleaming blade at the end and said, “YOU WANT SHAVING??” This barber decided to give me a facial massage after the haircut, which seemed to be standard procedure from all I could tell. He rubbed some white goo on my face and started to slap me around. After he hit me with the heel of his hand three times on the forehead, Homer d’oh style, I couldn’t stop cracking up, and when I opened my eyes to see my grinning white reflection I felt like the Joker after his plastic surgery in the first Batman. I stopped short of smashing the mirror on the wall, thinking it uncouth. Looking very American after my cut, I decided I would go back to the Indrapras Tower garba in jeans and a polo shirt so I wouldn’t look so out of place. Of course, just to ensure I wouldn’t fit in, everyone there was now dressed in their best Indian clothes. I was even more the subject of attention because I’d brought with me Amil’s friend Cheryl, who is Chinese American. (Okay, so she was the subject of attention, but aunties kept glaring at me too, no doubt considering me delinquent for being seen in public with a non-Indian girl). We tried not to notice everyone staring as I taught her some garba steps, and even managed to have some fun before midnight announced the death of the music.

Night 3: Somehow I found myself in the company of three other NRIs (non-resident Indians; some use the term to mean “not really Indians”) from California, whom I’d met on various occasions in the past. As we grabbed dinner at Havmor QuickBite, I learned that they, too, had been disappointed by the different garbas they had attended the past two nights. One main frustration: at most garbas here, people don’t dance in big concentric circles like we do in the states. Here everyone has their own clique, and they dance in small circles doing extraordinarily elegant moves in clothes that are nicer than what we wear to weddings. It’s very intimidating, although fun to watch. However, after our dinner, at a small samaj garba in the middle of nowhere, we struck gold at last. This garba was what we all had imagined Navratri in India would be like – a live band on a field of grass, everyone dancing barefoot in huge circles, all ages of people in one massive dance where anyone could feel welcome. The mood and atmosphere were incredible, the garba moves were new and interesting (yet manageable), and no one paid any attention to the midnight deadline. This was what we’d been waiting for, and for the first night we went home very happy. Warm-ups were over, it seemed, and the festival had truly begun.

Night 4: Night of the NRIs. Tagging along with a larger group of NRIs from Indicorps, I went to the school of architecture’s garba. We expected some hip new garba scene from the college kids, and were amazed when instead we found the twilight zone. This will forever live in my memory as a sort of abstraction in the world of Navratri, a quantum improbability…the circles moved clockwise (I’d never stopped to realize before this that in every other garba I’ve ever seen, the circles have moved counterclockwise), and everyone performed the same robotic, mantra-like moves for hours, barefoot on the soothing sandy dirt. I’d never seen these moves before; there were only two, and I can only describe one as The Trance and the other as The Caveman. I wish I could describe them better for you, I really do. But throw together the twilight zone, night of the living dead and Navratri and you’ve got the idea. Even stranger: we had fun.

Night 5: Went to Kalol, to Roopamasi’s place. A large garba at a nearby fancy hotel, where they projected live video of the dancers on a giant screen so all the spectators could have a close view. Here, people were really decked out, the men even more so than the women. A couple of guys were even dancing with matching parasols! (see pic) Unfortunately, this was one of those garbas where everyone danced in their own cliques. I tried to casually join one of the groups, only to be told by one of the local guys to leave. At first I was stunned, until one of my uncles explained to me that many guys will show up to garbas alone with bad intentions. The one who asked me to leave was probably just protecting the girls in his group, just as I would do if going out with a group of friends back home. Although that guy killed my night, I thought of the newspaper article about the need for “anti-Romeo police,” and I couldn’t blame him. Of course, it seemed ironic that he wanted to throw me out when a moment later, another local guy drove in on a scooter wearing a mask from the movie Scream. Yeah, protect your women from the harmless American desi, and let that guy right in – good call.

Night 6: Scored a free pass to the National Institute of Design garba with Minal’s group. This is supposed to be one of the best garbas in Ahmedabad, and it really lived up to that reputation! An absolutely amazing night – fantastic new moves, huge circles, great music, and a diverse crowd. The locals were so friendly, they never minded when I jumped into their groups; in fact, they would do their best to teach me in spite of our language barrier, and even would call me back into their circles when we got separated! All this and some fresh steaming samosa for 12 rupees. So far, easily the best night of Navratri, and the first night I’ve danced until my feet couldn’t take it any more. I’m going to try and remember some of these moves to show you all – people here dance with incredible style and creativity, and though my body doesn’t have enough joints to match them, imitation should be enough fun for the whole family.

Night 7: Met up with Sajan auntie and Mita (Toralben wasn’t feeling well and unfortunately couldn’t come). We took the National Expressway (a very modern recently constructed highway) to Vadodara (Baroda) to see what most people claim are the best garbas in all of Gujarat. The National Expressway itself was entertaining; every few hundred yards a large blue sign with white block letters would tell drivers “Don’t Stop on Expressway,” “No U-turn on Expressway,” “Lane Driving is Safe Driving,” and even “Speed Thrills, But Kills.” Constant reminders that modern streets don’t necessarily make modern drivers. Once in Vadodara, we went to the United Way garba. This was the most incredible sight of the week – the grounds were gigantic, and there were an estimated twenty thousand people! (The largest garba I’d been to until this point carried at most a thousand.) And everyone danced in almost perfect rhythm, forming dozens of huge concentric circles…this was truly the mother of all garbas, the best I’ve ever seen. The long drive from Ahmedabad meant we got there fairly late, only in time to have a short experience, but it was worth all the trouble. It removed any doubt – Vadodara is the place to be during Navratri, and if you’re a garba enthusiast, it is something you should try to experience at least once in your life.

Night 8: On the eighth day, he rested. Sigh…I thought I could go nine nights in a row, but seriously, going to bed at 3 or 4 a.m. for several days straight really gets to you.

Night 9: Today was Dussehra, the tenth day. Wait, I’m confused…isn’t the tenth day tomorrow? Apparently, things like this happen when you try to plan festivals on the lunar calendar but live on the solar one. So, we invited a bunch of family over for the traditional Dussehra meal, fafda and jalebi (see pic). Then, my cousin Pavan took me out to the YMCA garba, which was supposed to be the hot spot for the end of Navratri. The place was packed, and man, did people go all out for the final day…more exquisite outfits than you see in movies…they had a "best-dressed" contest in the middle of the field, and I stood for a while just watching the contestants sway about, looking like exotic birds in a seasonal mating dance. The most adorable were the little kids, adorned with thousands of sequins and jingling their colorful bangles as they tried to keep up with the adults. The center of the field also had a stage, where for the first time I saw a traditional garba, women only, carrying pots on their heads. As time went by, the women started to elevate their game…what started off as one pot on the head became seven, with six brass plates between the pots, and each plate filled with lit divos, so that each woman had 90 to 100 little flames dancing above her head. With one slip, any one of them could have set fire to us all. The woman in the middle balanced an entire murti on her scalp, devoted to Mataji. The troupe retreated for some time only to come back in full force, with the center woman now balancing a large wooden platform carrying seven stacks of pots, for a grand total of 175. 175 silver pots on a woman’s head, and she was dancing garba with more grace than I could ever hope to achieve (I’m going to have enough trouble keeping the hair from falling off my head). I didn’t dance much tonight, so mesmerized was I by all the brilliant sights of this final evening – all in all, a spectacular end to the festival. And yes, don’t worry, that also means an end to this ridiculously long blog entry.

Earthquake

2005-10-12T10:02:00.000+04:30

The magnitude 7.6 quake that recently devastated Kashmir has no doubt been the subject of worldwide news. Unfortunately, there is not much insight I can give you into the disaster that is not gleaned from the same sources of information you have. Apparently, the worst that Ahmedabad felt was a few tremors in its high-rise towers, which made some residents suffer flashbacks of the Bhuj quake of 2001…otherwise, our life has gone on much as usual. The Times of India has an interesting slant – I’ll just copy a couple of paragraphs from the newspaper here, and you can judge for yourself what it says about the current situation, both concerning the damage and the relationship between the two nations.

From October 10th article titled No response from Pak on India’s offer: “Though India was first off the mark offering help to its neighbour-rival-peace partner, there is little surprise in Delhi that the phone has not yet rung. As military rescue teams fly in from China, UK and other parts of the world to help out Pakistan in its hour of need, it will deny itself the expertise of Indian teams who boast of unparalleled experience in coping with similar crises just next door. The reason is simple: even a disaster of this magnitude will not open Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to the ministering attentions of the Indian Army, which is the only organization equipped to deal with such disasters.”

From October 11th article titled India to send relief to Islamabad: “For the first time since 1971, an IAF Il-76 aircraft will land in Pakistan on Tuesday evening with India’s first consignment of 25 tonnes of relief material…Keenly aware of Pakistan’s sensitivities, India has asked Pakistan to choose the spot where it should land. Indian officials said Pakistan is understandably jittery about allowing Indian military aircraft in PoK, which has been worst hit.”

From October 11th article titled Joint relief work ruled out: “Pakistan has ruled out joint relief operations with India in quake-hit Kashmir. ‘There is no possibility of any joint relief operations on both sides of the LoC. There is no population on the LoC,’ Pakistan foreign office spokesperson Tasleen Aslam said in Islamabad.”

The night of the earthquake, I struggled to imagine the damage it caused. Unrelatedly, I recently talked to a man who was trying to educate women in small villages about the laws that protect them from domestic violence. Somehow those two images combined to give the following poem.

“Broken”

My bedroom wall wails at me
In crumpled tones of my mummy’s voice
All the wood in the world
Would not shelter me from such sound
Sobs dying, only to be revived
Angrily
By barks from the stranger
We call daddy

Then the dull thuds
That solemn drum accented
By a cymbal crash
Plates and glass on the floor
Pieces of mummy to sweep for the dustbin
Within my room I am to stay
Until daddy creeps out the back door

Except today – a loud bang
Mummy’s bones break on my bedroom wall
And the sleeping house wakes
In a rage

Rumbles the pots off the shelf
Shakes the pictures in the hall
And I surround myself with a sheet
As the ceiling hails flakes of drywall
Windows crack and send battered light
Bouncing off my eyelids, always too thin
To block unwanted sight

A world crumbles
When at last I peek out of my cloth cocoon
To see mummy on the floor
Daddy staring through the gaping wound
Where had been my brave bedroom wall

One unshattered glass in his grip
Satisfies a last craving
But between us, not a word spoken
Our throats share the ground’s new slumber
Nay, I cannot cry, for I always knew one day
Our home
My wall
Would be broken.

Check Out My Pictures!

2005-10-09T01:26:00.000+04:30

Finally, I've managed to upload most of my pictures to Ofoto. There are three albums, one each for Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Ahmedabad (through the end of September). To see the pics, go to www.ofoto.com, and enter email address rishiblogpics@hotmail.com, password blogpics. Right now I'm enjoying Navratri, and will write about that and post those pictures next week. Enjoy the pics, and please leave comments!

Lightly Down a Darkened Way

2005-10-05T11:29:00.000+04:30

Love stories and tragedies never make me cry. Yet, a great sports movie can bring the sting to my eyes – why, you ask? Because they’re always about an underdog whose fierce will leads him to victory. It’s the triumph of personal achievement, of knowing, at last, that you’ve done something right, in spite of the odds.

My new favorite movie is Black. I finished watching it five minutes ago, and the sting is still behind my eyes. This is a rare achievement in a Hindi film, and it touched me very deeply. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a young girl, Michelle, who is blind and deaf. Her world is black, until a brilliant and eccentric teacher pierces that shell and lets in the light, teaching her to communicate with the outside. He helps transform her world from a dark place of confusion and aggression into a continuous struggle for achievement, where her determination to learn gives her a unique view into the world that we all occasionally fail to see.

Lately, I’ve been feeling like I failed to see the world as it is. Every time I pass a certain street near our house, sarcastically dubbed “Hollywood” by the locals, it gets to me. It’s a slum street, where the smell of human excrement fills your rickshaw and you watch with decidedly foreign eyes as young children squat on the sidewalk, play in the dirt, labor with their frail bodies. A minute later, you’re back on the main road, and you can breathe again, though you don’t feel particularly worthy of it.

It gets to me every time I continue to work on my project in autism. I sit and read more about the disorder, which affects an estimated 1 in 500 children, and I can’t help but become slightly ashamed of what I’m doing. Here I’ve come to India to help out, to put my wealthy and educated hands to some real-world use, and I choose to tackle a problem that seems exotic compared to the overwhelming common ailments of the public. For months I read esoteric papers about autism screening, labored over project design, convinced my university to approve and fund me, and now that I'm finally here, I’m spending my time convincing others that yes, there is a problem and it’s called autism and I know you’ve never heard of it but yes we need to solve it and no you can’t cure it but something must be done…

I pass that slum street every day and realize that I could have tried to tackle a problem that affects a much larger percentage of children in India. Wouldn’t my hands be put to better use giving vaccines to these children? Helping with development in the slums? Doing something other than spending weeks looking for that needle in a haystack autistic child, whom I may never find? Did I need to read research papers for months to figure out how to help others?

I’ve continued with my work; but every time I hear of someone who's come to India to work in the slums or the poorest villages, I feel, to be honest with you, almost like a phony. Like I came to an ocean and refused to wet my feet. And then today happened. Today, one of those inspirational days that often forms the turning point of a great sports movie.

This morning I met a fantastic woman who has created an integrated school, one where special ed and “normal” kids are put in the same classrooms. Creating such a school takes smashing through tons of societal misconceptions and parental anxieties, and she’s done so in style. She beamed with the pride of a mother as she showed me the neatly filled notebooks of children who, when they first came to her, could not speak, let alone read or write. We walked into one classroom that had 4 autistic kids among the others. When I stepped in, three of the children, including one of the autistic ones, came up and hugged me, with the innocence of children who have never been told that this is not “proper” classroom behavior. For a child with autism to show warmth to a stranger is a minor miracle.

Back in her office, the principal told me that most children with autism remain unrecognized in regular schools, or are never sent to school at all. Those who are not sent to school may be the lucky ones, since those in regular schools are often punished daily for their unusual behavior. She receives these children when parents become open to “last resort” thinking. When I told her the purpose of my project was to find these kids and bring them to rehabilitation earlier, a light came to her eyes. From her, I understood that no one else is really trying to do anything about this issue. There are scattered schools, doctors, and psychologists who know how to treat autism once it is brought to their attention, but they lack the supplies or resources to do any community outreach. Even those who are aware of the disorder do not have the time to spread awareness. I promised to create and bring to her information packets for parents who wish to know more about the disorder, and for her it was like Christmas had come at last. I walked out of that school with hope…an idea that maybe my seemingly esoteric project could do some tangible good after all.

And then tonight I watched the movie Black and gained an even greater respect for teachers who have the courage and determination to bring hope to those who live in darkness. Though children with autism are not entirely like Michelle, they too live in a confusing and aggressive world, one where they cannot trust their senses. The few wonderful people here who are teachers for such children can transform those frighteningly dark worlds with their love and their knowledge. In the movie, Michelle’s greatest fear was that she would be forgotten by her teacher. In Ahmedabad, many kids, misunderstood by the society into which they’re born, face the danger of never being known.

I’ve begun to picture all of India’s troubles as one giant black mansion, and those who give themselves to service as an angry mob outside with torches and pitchforks, seeking to burn the house down. I won’t be with them, attacking at the front gates; instead I’ll be slipping in through the back. I won’t be able to set fire to the house, but I’ll be able to sneak into a forgotten basement and light a candle. Suddenly, I’m okay with that.

When I pass the slums, I will continue to hope that one day I can help those poor people, or that someone does. For now, my role will be to try and achieve the dream of Black…to have even one child come out of that dark place and learn to share in our world. To give that child a chance to show us that an underdog can triumph if he’s got fierce will at his side. If that day comes to pass, nobody blame me if my eyes sting.

Don't you try learning me nothing

2005-10-02T13:10:00.000+04:30

I sincerely thought I was making progress learning Gujarati. I had figured out some of the differences between the past, present, and future tenses of verbs; most tellingly, our servant Shankar wasn’t laughing as much when I spoke. But today I made him crack up, as my temples throbbed trying to understand why some words are masculine and others feminine. I mean, who felt that “exercise” was a feminine thing? In the first place, one has to wonder about a culture that ascribes male or female status to objects with no obvious reproductive structures. Some sociologist somewhere, no doubt, has been endlessly tickled by the implied gender relations. Then, when you try and predict whether a particular noun will be graced with two XXs or an XY, you realize that prediction is futile – there doesn’t seem to be a pattern at all.

The trouble, as I’m rapidly discovering, lies in trying to learn a language through logic. It won’t get you very far. And to understand why, you have to think back to how the language probably developed. For an absurd yet illustrative example, I’ll use a fictitious language called Orgook. Let’s look back on the very creation of this language: a very long time ago, two cavemen, Org and Zorb, were grunting over a piece of meat. Wait, no, let’s make them vegetarian – it was a cucumber. Zorb made the mistake of trying to understand Org further than he could club him, and this took place:
Org: Zaftyquok!
Zorb: [Grunt]?
Org: Zaftyquok zammebe!
Thus, the words for “Let me eat this cucumber or I’ll kill you” were created; since the rest of the tribe had to respect and obey Org’s new grunting style, so was a new language. Now, try showing up 10,000 years later and deducing Org’s logic from a modern dialect, and you’re in for quite a spin. I imagine all languages must develop from analogous circumstances, where people for some compelling reason come to accept the random noises that other people make as symbolic. If language is truly just a communal agreement to share the spontaneous squawking of a few, it would seem logic need have little role in its creation, or therefore in its learning. My college linguistics professor would faint if she read this, but even after learning all she taught me about the complex structures of languages around the world, I feel it could be true.

So somehow someone who thought exercise had distinctly female qualities to it won out over the rest of Gujarati civilization, and his (or her) view stuck. I could try to tie this in to the previous discussion on Freud, but I’m pretty sure Org would rise from the dead and club me, and rightly so. You see, I’ve decided that language must be learnt before logic kicks in, during an age where you’re still building intuition and learning not to soil yourself. And if it’s not learnt, maybe it should be learned. I wish I had taken several different language courses back in my childhood, but all I wanted to do was watch cartoons. Can you blame me?

After all, shouldn’t kids be allowed to do as they please? (Except assign genders to other children, of course…leave that to the wordsmiths, my friend). Which brings me back to that old discussion on edumacation. You recall my friend here, Chandresh, that decided to raise his children outside the artificial boundaries of the educational system. His argument is compelling, but debatable. It got me thinking quite a bit about the relationships between curiosity, structure, and learning. It is easy to imagine ways in which the presence of formal standardized education can thwart a young child’s natural curiosity. I’m sure it’s even easy to find examples in your own past – how many teachers were very understanding of your interests when they lay outside the chosen curriculum? Curricula themselves are subject to the influences of societal biases, school board politics, teachers’ personalities, etc. What they are not generally subject to is the students’ wishes. Looking back, it’s easy to imagine that I might have learned a great many things differently (and retained much more of it) had I been encouraged to follow my own lead.

However, arguments to the contrary also present themselves. I always hated math, and would never have bothered with it had I not been forced. And yet, from the vantage point I now have, I definitely value my skills in basic arithmetic. In fact, I just finished reading a fascinating book about the mathematical patterns inherent in nature, and I even found myself glad that I had some background knowledge of differentials with which to understand it. Can a child be counted on to learn practical skills like arithmetic of his own will? Forget even practical skills – that argument makes the assumption that all children left to their own devices would spurn mathematics and become artistic hippies. I recall when I made the transition to junior high school, and was faced for the first time with choosing elective courses. My parents forced me to join the band. I went through the door kicking and screaming, but in the end I learned musical appreciation, and though I long ago dropped the clarinet, I believe those years gave me the building blocks which later allowed me to teach myself the guitar. (As a side note, it’s been kind of disconcerting to learn during my guitar lessons here that I’m a much worse guitar player than I’d previously thought. Self-teaching can take you far, but can’t always take you where you want to go). Only now do I appreciate the wisdom behind some of the structures that were imposed on me at that time.

But when I really think about it, the main things I remember learning from my years in the primary education system did not come from the chalkboard or the textbook. They came from being around dozens of other students in the same predicament, learning how to handle interpersonal relationships, learning how to operate within the structures that society has built. And so I wonder about my friend’s children – will they come out with the same implicit knowledge? I tend to agree with the spirit of encouraging a child’s natural curiosity; but unless one wants to decide for one’s children whether or not they will fit into society’s structures, shouldn’t they be taught how to live within them before being taught to rebel against them? I haven’t thought these things through fully, and I welcome your ideas on the matter.

To get another opinion on this, I asked Kiran, the founder of the Riverside School in Ahmedabad, for her thoughts. She’s a design graduate who spent a few years doing interior decorations for restaurants (including the Mexican festival one) until her daughter reached a school-going age. When Kiran found that no school met her idea of what education should be like for her daughter, she decided to build her own school. Like my friend Chandresh, she is a very dynamic person with a lot of inner creativity. Her school is quite unique in Ahmedabad; her first priority is to show the children that they have opinions, that their opinions matter, and that they need to demonstrate initiative if they wish to shape what they learn. She had the children draw up posters of a child’s basic rights and hang them up around the school (see pic). Whenever a child has an idea for something new to learn, she and the other teachers challenge the child to come up with a lesson that the whole class can share in.

For example, her fifth-graders recently decided they wanted to know more about Ahmedabad’s most popular radio station, Radio Mirchi. Kiran told them they should interview the radio station’s head of operations, but that if they chose this line of inquiry, they would have to handle the details from beginning to end. So the children sent an invitation to the radio manager, auditioned to determine who was going to interview him, decorated a classroom to look like a talk show, and voted on what questions they would ask him. The final product was incredibly professional, and as I watched the kids interview the manager, it was clear that he was as impressed as I was. The children are going to continue to interview people as a monthly series they’ve named “Coffee at Riverside.” This is the first school I’ve seen where the kids complain when they have to go home.

Back to my original line of thought – I asked Kiran how much structure children really need in order to learn effectively. She said that while children definitely need to learn structure, the important thing is what kind of structure – one that they have chosen or one that has been imposed upon them. She was somewhat critical of those who would deny formal education altogether, since in her view they are denying their children the opportunity to learn in a space that is initially unfamiliar. By going to school, children learn to face the unfamiliar and deal with it in a way they may not need to in the safe space of their home. She was equally critical of those who impose unnecessary structures upon children, giving as examples several instances in which parents she knows have answered questions for their children without letting the children speak their own minds. So in some sense her solution is a compromise – keep some structure, but change the way it is used, and be open to the idea of new structures born from the ideas of children.

I’ve struggled to try and remember how I used to want to learn, how my teachers in elementary school used to handle my crazy imagination, but I simply can’t. That’s part of the danger, some say – you get to a point where you’re so accustomed to structure you may not even remember what it’s like to have that crazy imagination, to follow those creative impulses. Many of society’s greatest innovators have, at a certain point in their development, rejected the standardization of their intellectual journeys. But the very reason we have such structures is that not everyone can thrive like that when left to themselves, isn’t it? Or is that selling people short?

Writing the word “short” has made me realize that this entry has become far too long. It started out just as my way of ranting about my inability to learn Gujarati quickly (which, I’ll admit in the end, is my own fault and probably has nothing to do with the way languages are created). Other interesting things have happened recently (I saw an Italian woman dance a bharatnatyam set to an Italian lullaby), but I’ll pass on writing more until next week. (What the heck, I’ll post the pic of the bharatnatyam arrabiata lady). Go take a break from your computer, and do something you used to do as a child! Except soil yourself, of course.

The Dark Side of the Fiesta

2005-09-27T11:07:00.000+04:30

I learned later that a man in Ahmedabad had been struck down by lightning during the storm I watched from my rooftop. Funny how often beauty portends danger. Perhaps the secret lies in beauty’s ability to blind us to peril, as it did me, standing there beneath our large metal television antenna during a thunderstorm.

I took a walk through the flooded streets the next day, where crowds of college kids with nothing better to do stood knee-deep in water to watch cars imitate boats, and helped rickshaw drivers float their vehicles across the intersection (I've reattached a larger version of the pic from the last blog entry, so you can click to expand it). That was also a sight with a sort of beauty to it, innocent and fun, until I read in the paper that three people had drowned. Newspapers have a way of ruining your day.

Like the way the newspapers here keep talking about the death of Navratri this year. I’ve been looking forward to the festival, eager to see how raas-garba is done in the homeland…but this year, the Supreme Court has issued a ban on the use of loudspeakers after 10 p.m. It’s ridiculous, since usually people get out of the office by 8 p.m and won’t even arrive until after 10. Several of Ahmedabad’s largest garba organizers have thrown in the towel, refusing to hold celebrations this year, and I just read that many of the most popular singers have decided it would be more profitable to travel abroad where they can sing until the late hours. Every day the front page talks about how quiet Navratri 2005 will be, but there is one glimmer of hope…some have figured that since the ban specifies loudspeakers and says nothing about dhols, they will simply hire dholis to play their drums after the speakers go off. Sales of dhols have gone up 30% this year. Navratri starts next week, so I’ll let you know how it goes.

Over the weekend I attended some psychoanalysis sessions at the Antarnad Foundation, an institute of psychotherapy at which I’m conducting part of my autism work. The seminars consisted of students presenting transcripts of their patients’ therapy sessions to an attending, who then offered his expert analysis. For example, he enlightened us all by explaining that when one 8-year old patient rolled a piece of clay into a carrot and then cut it, he was reenacting a castration fantasy and was actually expressing anxiety about the impending fate of his…er, carrot. And when he then smushed all the clay back into a ball, he was demonstrating a “manic reparation” in which he desperately attempted to fix what was…broken, you might say. I can’t imagine how my childhood games might have been interpreted. (Though I’m poking fun at the more colorful interpretations, some of the analyses he gave were actually incredibly insightful…Freudian theory gets a bad rap these days, especially in the west.) It wouldn’t be ethical to write down the stories of the patients I heard analyzed those two days, but I think you might have reacted much the same way I did had you heard them. At the end I walked out both amazed and frightened by human psychology. I went home and watched Star Wars, and tried my best not to interpret the symbolism behind Luke and his father fighting with light sabers.

You recall that I mentioned to you to a restaurant here that listed one of its “Mexican dishes” as “rastada” – as if the Jamaican bobsled team were in the back cooking. Well, tonight we went to a restaurant that was holding a Mexican food festival. I felt brave. We walked in, and my bravado collapsed into laughter. An auntie and uncle were at the doorway dressed in sombreros and Hawaiian t-shirts. Enrique Iglesias’ “Hero” played on the speakers. When we sat down, instead of giving us chips and salsa, they served us popcorn…yep, masala and all. I decided to order a chimichanga, figuring that at least if they fried it, I wouldn’t be able to recognize the horrible defacement of a burrito. All the amusement screeched to a halt when the food came. My plate (I wish I had taken a picture) featured, at the center, a large mound of Basmati rice. Flanking the rice on one side was a pool of salsa; on the other, what appeared to be Mexican chili.

I stared at the waiter. “Where’s the chimichanga?” “This is a chimichanga, sir.” His intelligence appeared to be somehow impeded by the sombrero, so I tried again. “A chimichanga is a fried burrito,” I explained. Now he was really straining himself against the effects of the sombrero, and he managed only a nervous smile, like a kid caught driving without a license. Finally some initiative burst through the straw and he offered to go fry me a burrito. I declined, but asked for some beans, secretly fearing he would go bring me a different variety of popcorn instead. The music had by this time exhausted its repertoire and returned to the Enrique Iglesias song. Luckily, the mystery was soon solved…beneath what I thought was chili were a few small triangles that looked like samosa. They even tasted like samosa, except for the chili on top, but I was satisfied…someone had fried something, and I had reason to rejoice. My grandmother, on the other hand, hadn’t been so lucky…her “fajitas” were chapatis filled with beans, with a little paneer tikka on the side. Qué será será.

Paparazzi

2005-09-23T10:57:00.000+04:30

Last night I was awakened by a flicker of light in the room. I tried to keep my eyes shut, but my lids proved useless as curtains against the glow. Finally I rose from bed, and found myself in pitch black – no one was around, and the tube light above me was cold. Yet a moment later my room filled with white light, and one look out the window was enough to make me put on my slippers, get out my umbrella, and climb the stairs to the terrace on top of our house.

Standing on the roof in the rain, I had to peer from under the umbrella to see the hazy sky above. No cloud could be seen, nor star, only a misty gray screen that gave no clue to its depth or distance. It was like the blank screen of a movie theater before the previews; and as if a movie star were about to emerge upon that silver canvas, the night sky had become paparazzi, illuminating the entire globe with flash upon flash of light. Most were diffuse explosions of white, gleam scattered by droplets. But several would streak across the length of the sky in jagged, restless paths. At least 4 flashes lit my eyes every second, making it the most spectacular lightning show I have ever seen. It felt as if the world had been turned into one of those plasma balls, where the energy beams focus on your finger as you trace the curve of the globe. Or, as if hundreds of celestial cameras were frantically shooting. And there I stood, beneath the umbrella, smiling at the sky, as if I were the star they were hoping to catch on film.

In the morning it felt like a dream, except my slippers were still wet. The sun shone through grayish clouds and I thought the storm was over. However, today, for the first time, I saw lightning during daylight. It was like seeing Neel in the kitchen. (Both lightning and Neel, by the way, could do me considerable damage for that comment, but both are far enough away at the moment for me not to worry about it.) Thunder erupted as a kind of applause, so powerfully that I felt our roof was going to blow off like the hat of a man in the wind. And yet, there was still the searing heat…when the clouds aren’t dripping, my pores are, and it’s caused me to have to change my shirt twice today. To think, this is the decline of the monsoon season!

It hasn’t stopped my days from getting busier. I’ve been visiting preschools to convince them to let me screen their children for autism, as well as giving lectures to teachers to educate them about the problem. I’ve learned just how careful I have to be with what I say…after I had given a ton of examples of behavior that might alert one to the presence of autism in a child, one of the schoolteachers approached me sheepishly in the hallway. I had mentioned in my talk, to give an example of repetitive motor behavior, that some autistic children will rock themselves back and forth continuously for hours on end. She had come to me to confess that she will sometimes rock back and forth when listening to a lecture, and was now worried that she had a disorder. Everyone’s a hypochondriac (medical students should know that, because we’re the worst ones), and it seems I’ll need to be very cautious if I don’t want to cause widespread panic.

One of the schools I visited was busy preparing an annual march for world peace, so I joined the teachers and busloads of children in trampling through the trafficky streets with banners and signs. Words of love and peace were carried on cardboard, people walking hand in hand. That was a special moment for me, because I could feel Berkeley in the air. Go Bears!

I’m going to bed, and perhaps this time the night will keep its promise and let the world be dark. Thanks to everyone for writing comments on the blog, they're always fun to read. By the way, I finally managed to get a small handful of pics uploaded to the blog, starting from the tuk-tuk entry. The pic of the flooded street shown above is of the cross street (vijay char rasta) nearest our house - I'm so thankful I bought gore-tex lined shoes before my trip!

Like Walking in Water

2005-09-19T10:55:00.001+04:30

Life in Ahmedabad has crawled along at its beautifully slow pace. My muscles have finally started to believe me, that they can let down their tension, that they don’t have to run around all day trying to accomplish things. My brain took the cue too, and has laid off a few million neurons to prepare for the slow season. The gears inside still creak around just enough to let me enjoy the perennial drowsiness, and to let me realize how different things are here. I take less for granted now…for example, I no longer expect that water will be disease-free, that elevator doors will open on their own, or that sidewalks will not double as urinals for schoolchildren. I’ve become comfortable with fewer comforts. However, in other ways I am being spoiled...I no longer put my own dishes away, clean anything, or have to prepare even the simplest snack, since Shankar, who has been employed by my grandparents for decades, does all those things. It’s a very strange mix of third-world reality and first-class luxury. Though they are well off, it’s not that my grandparents live atop a mountain of silver – the occasional mouse runs through the kitchen here like any other house on the street – but labor is cheap enough that middle-class folks don’t deal with it.

My grandmother continues to try and teach me Gujarati. I haven’t fully grown accustomed to understanding either the Gujarati or the English used by my relatives, and no one has fully grown accustomed to my English. It has made for some confusing situations. For example, a conversation between my grandmother’s sister, Babymasi, and me, during which she requested that I take her blood pressure...she kept using the abbreviation “b.p.”, and in spite of straining my ears, what I heard over and over was “pee-pee.” Here’s the conversation:
“Rishi...you have to take my b.p.”
“What?”
“My b.p. You have to take it.”
“Wha...why?”
“Every day.”
“I...but...”
“Because you are a doctor.”
“Yes, but...no, I’m not...”
“You must take my b.p. every day.”
Finally my grandmother pulled a blood pressure cuff out of a drawer. Ah. One nervous smile, one relieved smile, and one short prayer later, I took her sister’s blood pressure. I got a different reading than what she’s used to, instantly lost all credibility, and she hasn’t let me take it since.

I’ve also begun work on my project. For those whom I haven’t told, the project concerns setting up a screening program for autism among the preschools and pediatric wards of the city. The screening tool, a simple parental questionnaire, is almost complete (some revisions remain to the Gujarati translation), and I have begun to enlist the assistance of preschool teachers and physicians who will help me with its distribution.

In my quest to meet teachers, I came across one man who does not believe in teaching. He believes that “schools make naturally vibrant children into failures for life,” and has created a group called the Learning Network, whose first principle is that nothing can be taught. Everything must be learned through the natural process of curiosity. Thus, his three children do not attend school, but rather learn everything at home (though he recoils with horror if you use the term ‘home-schooling’...he is determined that they not be schooled at all). He explained that he allows his children to determine what they learn, and he and his wife merely accompany them on their intellectual journey. His 5-year old son has not yet shown any interest in reading, and so he says, “we do not push books on him. He enjoys pictures, so we create art together.” He pointed to his 3-year old son and said, “he’s in a world of his own, so we let him be.” At the moment, the child was curiously exploring how to relieve himself on the carpet. The children also have not been vaccinated, said the man proudly, as he does not believe in doctors...whenever the kids get sick, he performs pranic healing, and they become healthy. He learned pranic healing in a 2-day workshop offered by a local center, and when I heard this, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity; so, I got the info for the center and in a few days will become a pranic healer myself. I didn’t ask him if attending the workshop violated the first principle of his group, or if his life had been changed by the movie “Big Daddy.” He’s a very intelligent man who dropped out of school at the age of 16 and has created a happy, artistic and well-educated life for himself nonetheless; I only hope, for the sake of his children, that his theories work.

In scattered other news, I bought a new guitar (a jumbo “Epephone,” rip-off of Epiphone) and started guitar lessons, I’ve finally begun reading for pleasure again (highly recommend The Kite Runner and Interpreter of Maladies), and I went bowling barefoot today (here, you take your shoes off for everything). My immune system had its first seminar in strange-and-disquieting-diseases, but I survived, and my appetite returned after two nights of crampy pain that made me regret ever making fun of girl’s periods. The rains have worsened, dark clouds thundering louder than California clouds know how, blackened sky taking flash photography of the mess below. When the rains let up it’s cooler outside, allowing us to take walks, jump puddles, and buy more Cadbury chocolate from the corner market. My inclination to become a tostada-wallah renewed itself with a vengeance today when I saw a restaurant list its “Mexican dishes” as “burio” and “rastada.” There’s more to tell, but I feel like slowing down again, so I’m going to go read to myself until the gears in my head stop creaking for the night.

Ahmedabad: Land of the Gujus

2005-09-14T01:27:00.001+04:30

I spent only four hours in Mumbai before connecting with my domestic flight to Ahmedabad. The airports have vastly improved since I last saw them...but, of course, they're filled with the same wonderfully inefficient people! I had to exchange some dollars into rupees, but found no one at the currency exchange counter. I drummed my fingers for a couple of minutes before I finally peeked over the counter and saw the worker sleeping underneath, on a bed of old newspapers. I woke him up, only to have him plead, “Nay, bhai! Come back in four hours.” He then started snoring, as if to say, “Welcome to India.”

As the plane took off, I watched Mumbai take a precipitous fall below. Whenever I take a night flight out of Los Angeles, I look out the window and am amazed at how the city lights and freeways make LA look like a living computer chip when viewed from above. It is robotic, disturbing, beautiful. Mumbai, beneath ashen clouds, looked like glittering coals, and brought to my mind images of smoked corn with masala and lemon. When we began the descent into Ahmedabad, I realized that my grandparents’ city has fewer lights and less structure than even Mumbai. It was easy to peer at the randomly assorted twinkling lights, nothing but blackness between them, and imagine I was in space...a few stars here, a cluster of galaxies there. The Milky Chai. The plane landed and I came down to earth.

My smile was broader than the sky when I arrived at my grandparents’ house. It was just as I remembered it...an endearingly faded red brick house with a perimeter of green garden, and beyond that a dirt road that used to become a moat during the rainy seasons. When we were young, Neel and I used to think that the house was a tower, and we could have sworn it was at least four or five stories high. Later we understood that it was really two stories and a terrace, but that didn’t change the magic of it.

Inside, I let myself be surrounded by the atmosphere of my home away from America. It would be too much here to describe the memories of which I was reminded as I unloaded my bag, but I’ll just say that I’ve never been so happy to see uneven tile floors, rickety fans or rusted iron gates. There are no flaws in this house, only wrinkles...just like on the people who give it life, my grandparents.

In the morning and afternoon, my grandmother and I communicate in Guj-English, and I’m slowly picking up some conversational skill in our native Gujarati. In the evenings, my grandfather and I discuss medicine, the politics of India, religion. I told him about the spider and the cricket, and asked his opinion on what I should have done back in that Lantau forest. He said, “Either option is harmful, and it is a tough decision. Whatever you choose, the important thing is awareness. Religion teaches us bewareness – it frightens us, says that one way is always better than another. The important thing is awareness.” Pearls of wisdom always roll from his tongue in casual evening conversations.

Ahmedabad is cleaner than I remember - there are street signs, occasionally street lanes (more like timid suggestions than real directions), and even countdown clocks that tell you how long before the traffic light turns green. Not that it matters, of course...people usually go as they please, honking by habit more than by way of warning. Back in LA I've become a pretty aggressive driver, and I'd wondered if that style of driving might serve me well in India. However, to be safe as an aggressive driver, you have to count on the fact that other people are following the very rules you are bending. Here, the only rules of the road are these: get where you need to go, and try not to hit anything. Here, I'd be considered meek behind the wheel. If I ever fulfill my childhood dream of becoming a video game designer, I'm going to make Mario Kart: India edition; Mario will drive a Bajaj, and instead of leaving behind banana peels, he'll leave behind gigantic potholes. The recent rains here have filled these potholes so you can't tell how deep they are until you drive over them, which is tons of fun, you won't know till you try it.

There are some nice restaurants too; some of them, signs of westernization, boast U.S. symbols on their windows or front lawns, such as the tall Statue of Liberty reproduction in the front of one New York-style cafe. Fast food chains have of course dug their claws into our soil as well, but to their credit have made some attempt to mix with the local culture. A front-page article in the Times of India, titled “Only Veg Please, Because We Are Like This Only”, boasted that Ahmedabad has the world’s first fully vegetarian Pizza Hut. It's a big relief for me to finally be able to let down my guard about finding Rishi-friendly food outside the house. A couple of nights ago we went to an Italian restaurant for dinner and I asked one of my standard questions – is the pasta made with eggs? The waiter's eyes widened in disbelief at my question, and he said, “Sir, we are pure vegetarian here.” Then he laughed, as if to say, "Welcome to Gujarat." Oh, and I've found an addiction...no, not to Manikchand Gutkha, but to the greatest thing to hit grocery store shelves since Soft Batch cookies: Mango-flavored Corn Flakes! Dude...the best cereal ever...chai and nasto simply can't compete.

So my life has hit a nice routine here, after all the traveling in HK and Bangkok. Except for yesterday, which was far from routine...yesterday I reached into the back of a young boy and pulled several stones out of his kidney. Not with my fingers, of course, but with forceps and an endoscope. My uncle had taken me to a small hospital on the outskirts of Ahmedabad, past the last city traffic lights, past the farms where men lead expeditions of cows down dirt roads, past the last traces of smog. In a dank little surgery wing, he instructed me to take off my shoes and put on the "O.R. slippers" - a bloodstained pair of flip-flops. In the O.R., a young boy anesthetized with ether awaited us, and we used pneumatic lithotripsy to smash his stones before removing them piece by piece with tiny forceps. When the operation was done, I couldn't wash my hands for several minutes because the building had run out of water, and they had to call out to bring some. I kept imagining one of the UCSD scrub nurses fainting, and at least that thought brought me a smile.

Gotta run to have lunch...I'm having trouble posting pictures from these slow internet connections, so I'll post pics of the house and of Bangkok once I find a way. For now, I'll leave you with a sort of homecoming poem about our house in Ahmedabad, which may paint a verbal picture of my return here.

Tower of brick
Shines red in monsoon showers
While emerald gardens surround her
Peacocks sway through the grounds
And walk round me like whispers

Twin sister doors
Stand majestic guard
Against thunder’s raucous din
My relative royalty sleeps
Within white linen sheets

Mosquitoes buzz in Mummy’s ears
Seek heat in spastic yellow bulbs
Gullible to humming plastic
That replaces summer sun

And we itch for relief
To ditch the sticky heat
With fresh Dairy Den thick shakes
Strawberry bits soothe the lips
Mango pulp drips from our spoons
I savor a half-moon bite
From a Chocobar’s milky white

As stainless steel rings
Cups and bowls clatter
To announce lunch
And Papa shaves at the table
Foam brushed upon his chin
Albino coats for whiskered skin
My cheeks filled with chuckles
Whenever I sit beside him

Patient as warm ghee
Glistens on folded roti
From Gangaram’s hardy hands
That held me often as a boy
Only to behold me as a man

When today I bow through the doorway
Of aged sagacious brick
That knew me once in a joyous hour
Shining red in monsoon showers.

Those Tricky Tuk-Tuks

2005-09-10T11:01:00.000+04:30

Bangkok reminds me a lot of Bombay...the innumerable rickshaws (“tuk-tuks”), narrow streets where lanes are a fleeting and subjective phenomenon, street peddlers, beggars, the pungent and sweet smells of the local food mixing in the exhaust of cars to remind you that while you may not be able to breathe, you are alive. On the bus to Khao San Road, the famous backpacker’s street where cheap guesthouses and internet cafés form the microculture, I met a couple of Britons. Not knowing where I was going to stay anyway, I followed them to the Bella Bella guesthouse, and managed to get a single room with a fan for 170 Bhat a night ($1 = 40 Bhat). Like nearly all the guesthouses in the area, Bella Bella has a restaurant and internet café attached, and an in-house “travel agent” – in other words, whoever happens to be behind the counter. I got a couple of maps and tourist pamphlets and set off to see the sights.

Although I’m sure it’s famous by now, some of you may not have heard of my sense of direction...it’s been missing for years. So even at the risk of being a picture-perfect Clueless Tourist, I walked with a brightly colored map in hand, searching for street signs and landmarks that would help me get somewhere in the ballpark of where I might reasonably want to be. A friendly young Thai man took pity on me, and came up to me to say hi. We made some small talk for a while, during which I found out he was an aspiring English teacher, and wanted to practice his English with me. He excitedly described all the beautiful things I should see in his city, and asked if he could see my map...on it, he proceeded to draw me out a fool-proof path to these sights, and even showed me how to write my name in Thai. He also wrote down the name of a good tailor’s shop, Voglee tailors, in case I wanted any clothes made for cheap. I thanked him, wished him good luck on becoming a teacher, and continued down the street.

A tuk-tuk driver saw me with my map, asked to see it, and I showed him the drawn path of the sights I wanted to see. He offered to take me to each one, then back to Khao San Road, for a good price – we haggled with the price, then I jumped in, and we were off. He dropped me at a temple that held the Lucky Buddha statue, and said he would wait outside. I wandered around the perimeter of the temple, but it appeared to be closed...again, a random Thai man took pity on my lost expression, and motioned to me to sit down with him. He said, “I come to see temple too, but forget that today special day for monks...they do prayer until 1 pm today. So what I do? I have to wait outside. I’m a policeman, you see?” He proudly showed me his badge. “But I’m on holiday today, and it’s my only day to go to temple, so I wait.” We small-talked for a while about Hollywood movies. Then he said, “You don’t stay here until 1 pm, still one more hour. You don’t sit all day - don’t tell me joke! You like shopping? I tell you good shop, I get great suit made. Voglee tailor, and did you see TV yesterday? No? Don’t tell me joke! They have big sale.” He turned into a walking commercial, and I switched him off to go find my driver.

On the way to the next temple, which boasted the Standing Buddha statue, the driver asked if I like shopping. I was getting tired of all the shopping references, and said no repeatedly, but he kept begging me to just stop for two minutes at one shop. “Why?” I queried him. Finally he lowered his voice and said, “Because they give me gas coupon if I bring tourist.” Now the game was out, the mystery revealed, and my head practically made an audible click as I switched into Tourist With A Clue. I agreed to see his precious shop, partly so he could get a gas coupon and partly because I now felt like an anthropologist documenting the ways of the tuk-tuk. We arrived at the shop, I poked my head out, and what I saw gave me the type of stinging but appreciative smile you get when someone’s played a good joke on you. Sure enough, it was Voglee tailors.

I now had been recommended to this store by a random guy on the street, a policeman on holiday outside a temple, and a driver. I stepped inside, interested to see the tailors that had all of Bangkok on their payroll. My eagerness to meet the masterminds faded when I saw that they were already getting ready to take my measurements. I bolted out of the store within 30 seconds, apparently enough time for a coupon to have materialized in my driver’s hand, and he gave me a smile that said, “thank you.” We drove off to see the Standing Buddha, an on the way I pieced together the rest of the puzzle. With additional experience I gained the next day, I learned the game works like this:

Tuk-tuk drivers employ people, or simply ask their friends, to stand around on street corners and approach tourists with small talk. They will give you a plausible story that they are a policeman on holiday, a military officer on his week off, or any other such thing, and even show you a fake badge. They take interest that you see certain sights they consider most beautiful, and even draw you a path on your map that will, conveniently, pass by a participating shop – Voglee tailors, for instance. The moment you are leaving them, a tuk-tuk will pull up and ask to see your map, or a driver will happen to walk by and say he can give you a good price to see all the sights you want to see. Then they do everything in their power to get you to that store, including taking you to false locations of temples (as I learned the next day when I saw the real Lucky Buddha, a block down from the closed temple to which I’d been taken). It’s very clever, really. And in truth, not a bad deal for the tourist either, who gets driven all over Bangkok almost for free (with the addition of a 5-minute stop at a store)...as long as you firmly refuse to believe anyone if they tell you your tourist attraction is closed for the day, closed for special prayer, or any other such nonsense. Never believe anything is closed in Bangkok until you see it with your own eyes...I surprised a couple of drivers the next day by blowing past their vehement attempts to get me to turn away from a supposedly shut-down landmark, and enjoyed their defeated looks when I stepped into the real (and very open) temples I wanted to see. If they get you to believe the temples are closed, they can convince you more easily that it’s time to go shopping.

That first night, after the Standing Buddha and with no more secrets between us, my tuk-tuk driver and I had become friends; and so I easily obliged when he begged me to stop at just one more store before he took me home. He had already driven me valiantly for a couple of hours in ridiculous traffic...why not get the poor old fellow another coupon, when it would take just five minutes of my time? We pulled up to a store, I told him I’d be back in under a minute, and I hopped through the tinted doors to an air-conditioned room. Then my jaw dropped.

There were tan leather couches, long oak tables, and clusters of potted plants. Anyone might have mistaken it for a rather posh hotel lobby if not for the large glass display case. For inside the display case sat about thirty women, all now suggestively smiling at me. A man in a very nice black suit took my arm and asked me to sit down, have a drink...and how about some Thai massage? He started to list the “services” provided by these women. I glanced through the glass, but tried not to meet the mascara-enhanced stares – I couldn’t decide if I felt more sorry for the youngest or the oldest woman in the group. (Mom and Dad, I know you’re horrified, but don’t worry – there was no nudity, because they had tried to give the place as distinguished a look as possible. Or, because they didn’t want to give anything away for free.) I yanked my arm away and headed for the door, but the man came after me and took my arm again – he really had a finely tailored suit, and I wondered if Voglee tailors was behind this too – and said, “Please, take just look!” Then he pointed to one of the women, who wore a numbered card around her neck. “Try #24,” he said. “She verrry goooood.” “Why do you say that?” I asked, not even knowing why I was asking. A tired look crossed his eyes. “Because,” he said quietly. “She’s my sister.”

At that point I was more disgusted with him than with the entire business of prostitution, and I yanked my arm away again, heading outside with him calling out “I give you gooood price!” My tuk-tuk driver waited with a big grin on his face, and when I saw his expression, upset though I was about his latest trick, I almost wanted to laugh with him. “You no like Thai massage with boom-boom?” he asked as we drove back to Khao San Road.

On the drive back, I thought about something that had happened earlier in the day. My original tuk-tuk driver was an older man, but after we agreed on the price of the ride, he had actually dropped me off to another tuk-tuk...when I asked him why, he said he wanted his son to drive me around. I suppose he, just like the man with the Voglee suit, had been doing what he could to help his loved ones...by bringing business to his family.

The rest of the Bangkok trip, I walked the streets as Tourist Who Takes No Crap and calmly dismissed all attempts at friendly discourse by random Thai men. Everyone, I felt, had an agenda. That’s what a big city does to you...makes you learn to be rude in all the right places...gives you your own agenda.

For all of you who snickered back home when I said I was going to get a Thai massage in Bangkok, okay, fine...you win. But I did get a Thai massage the next night, a legitimate one, in a place without any tinted windows and with no one in suits. 2 hours of clean, fully clothed massage for under 10 bucks. Relaxed, I enjoyed the rest of my stay in Bangkok...I saw the Grand Palace, Golden Mountain, a traditional costume dance to music that reminded me of Javanese gamelan, and several temples. By this point in my trip, I had seen a Giant Buddha, a Lucky Buddha, a Standing Buddha, a Reclining Buddha, and an Emerald Buddha...about the only Buddha I haven’t seen is a Bhangra Buddha. Hey, you never know.

As I left Khao San Road for the airport, it occurred to me, I still don’t know why, that I was going to miss Bangkok. In spite of all the cards it kept up its sleeves, I hoped one day I would come back again to try another hand. I’m now in Ahmedabad, India, at last. I’m too tired to write more now, so I’ll tell you about this wonderful place, my home for the next 5 months, in my next entry.

Hong Kong, Part Deux

2005-09-06T08:00:00.000+04:30

I'm now at the end of my stay in Hong Kong - Homan, sorry for bashing it :), but it is one huge outdoor mall. I even took a bus to the southern tip, rode for one hour just to get to a beach, and what did I find? Waterfront shops! The sand was on sale for $1 a pound (club price). I finally broke down and bought something, an "original" black and white painting that was instantly replaced once I had paid for it.

Deciding to explore more of Hong Kong proper (I've been staying in Kowloon, which is just across a short strip of water), I went to The Peak, which provided a picturesque panorama of HK's skyline (see pic). From there I headed to Lan Kwai Fong, which is the famous nightlife scene of the central city; although I was not alone, my companion (a distant relative charged with showing me around for the night) was not the talkative type, and so we simply people-watched in silence. If there was any place to do that, this was it - drunk foreigners dressed up in animal outfits, a group of locals all wearing blue t-shirts yelling at each other to drink from a communal water bottle (seemed to be some sort of hazing), a Chinese rock band playing INXS' Need You Tonight...it was people-watching at its strange best. I was glad, since conversation languished between me and my host; if anyone spoke between us, it was like a sonic boom.

The next night I saw the laser show at Kowloon's harbor. As Kowloon is just across the water from HK, it provides a perfect view of the city's skyline, and the laser show even utilizes all of HK's tallest skyscrapers, which either have laser beacons at their tips or the ability to flash odd combinations of light at you. Imagine watching a laser show in New York where the Empire State Building had green beams teeming from the tip and the Chrysler building had dancing lights, and you've got the idea. It was as if a maniac had gotten hold of the city's light switches and was trying to play a symphony with them - a somewhat fascinating yet truly bizarre display of electric prowess. And this happens every night, with an extended show on Sundays. I'm told the show would have made more sense to me had I listened to the radio narrative that goes with it, but as luck would have it I was bathed in silence with my favorite evening host.

Today I finally jumped ship and went to explore the neighboring island of Lantau, which is an hour away by ferry. It houses the world's tallest Buddha statue, a 34-meter 250-ton giant that sits atop a lotus throne overlooking the lush green hills of the island. The area around it is serene despite the tourists, and the 268-step climb to the Buddha is well worth the views. Afterwards I had vegetarian Chinese food at the nearby Po Lin Monastery; I was expecting a humble meal, but rather found myself feasting on a spicy 4-course lunch with soup, spring rolls, tofu with vegetables, and spinach & mushroom (mmmm...Chinese Zachary's). Lantau was everything I'd been waiting for in my trip.

Overjoyed to be around a wooden jungle rather than a concrete one, I went for a hike in the trails beside the Buddha. I've hiked through rainforests in three different countries in my life, and can honestly say I've never been truly frightened of the local insects until now...they nearly made me jump out of my skin! Bat-like furry ferocities with butterfly wings, real butterflies the size of small countries (gorgeous but freaky), spiders that could chomp my nose off with a single bite. Every moment carried with it a certain peril. I got lost on the trail (of course), which was fortunate because I happened upon a small monastery hidden in the mountains where I was able to hear the monks chanting. That brought with it a sense of peace, and I braved the trail back to the Buddha.

What follows is a tiny tale followed by philosophical musing, so feel free to skip this if you're short on time, it may not be interesting. I was walking along the trail, noticing that members of an odd species of flying cricket were leaping from just under my every footfall, when I saw a large spider's web. I took another step, and a legion of crickets sprayed from underneath me in all directions...one of them inadvertently straight into the clutches of the web! I froze, fascinated by how it seemed to be floating in mid-air, when the corner of my eye announced the coming of the architect, which looked to be a cross between a spider and a stegosaurus.

A dilemma dropped into my dazed look. The cricket's unfortunate position was a result of the threat of my footstep, and therefore I felt responsible for it; I could save its life, but that would mean destroying the spider's web and depriving it of its meal, which would constitute a direct attack on its livelihood. I hesitated to interfere with nature's course, and while I paused an old bedtime story told to me by my father many years ago flashed into my mind. It is the story of a Jain monk who was wandering the woods...he came across a wounded bird who was about to be eaten by a snake. Not wanting the bird to die, yet not wanting to deprive the snake of its natural food, he stepped between the two - this allowed the bird to flee and the snake to take a bite of the monk's leg as a substitute meal. Such self-sacrifice is considered a high virtue, and I have often marveled at the monk's unique solution. I have also wondered if I would be capable of such sacrifice.

My hesitation was enough to allow the spider to skillfully suffocate the cricket in a white cocoon of webbing (yes, that's the actual pic). Its moves were as beautiful as they were deadly, and when I emerged from my reverie I realized that I had failed to act at all. Unlike the monk, I could not feasibly have provided an alternate meal for the spider; unlike the monk, I was no help to anyone. I realized too late that I should probably have saved the cricket, since both creatures would then at least have been alive. A home can be rebuilt, food can be replaced, but the cricket's life was over for good, and I still ached with a sense of responsibility.

Arriving back at the giant Buddha, I took comfort in his forgiving look and decided that the cricket and the spider had taught me a lesson; they had reminded me of the principles of my childhood story, and shown me that philosophy without action can be as harmful as action without philosophy.

Tomorrow I head to Bangkok, back to a jungle of people and streets. More to come soon...

An American in Hong Kong

2005-09-04T00:01:00.000+04:30

My trip begins with a 4-day stay in HK; I was picked up from the airport by one of my cousin's friends, a 23 year old diamond-business guy from Mumbai who decided to seek his fortune in Sheng Zen. The first thing he said to me was, "no one could mistake you for Indian!" I guess there's no hiding the America in me; I wanted to tell him no one would mistake him for Chinese, but I let it go. On the bus ride to Kowloon, I learned that my new Indo-Chinese friend was about to be engaged to a girl in India who'd been picked recently by his parents. I asked him if he was happy, and he said yes. I asked him if physical attraction was important to him, and he said, "If a child is born to an ugly mother, what should it do? Commit suicide? No, it must love her." I didn't quite know what to say to that, so there ended our discussion on arranged marriage.

At my cousin Prasanna's place, I've been playing with his two adorable kids (see pic), and wandering out into the city to see the sights. Hong Kong really is a shopper's paradise - it's almost a pity I hate shopping. There's not much else to do in the concrete jungle, as far as I can yet tell...anybody who's been here have any suggestions? Everywhere you look you see tall buildings, and you would swear you're still in downtown no matter how far you travel. Many of them are apartment buildings (Zen question of the day: how many flats does it take to make a high-rise?). The bustle of the sidewalks reminds me of New York...you must walk with a skilled purpose to avoid being a pinball. Oh, and I made one discovery this morning - soymilk is cheaper here than regular milk! Score: Jain boy 1, Dairy industry 0.

Welcome

2005-09-01T09:39:00.000+04:30

Hello, friends and family! I'm taking a year off of medical school, and this blog is for you to peek into my travels and my thoughts; I'll update it as often as I can. I'd love to read your comments - and even if I can't respond to everyone individually, know that I'm thinking of you and that I always look forward to hearing how you're doing. Enjoy this view into my world, and I'll see you when I get back...