Feast your eyes

Here are more pictures of my explorations in one of Varanasi and our winter vacation in Rajasthan, including Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, a camel safari in the Thar Desert, and Jaipur.


http://picasaweb.google.com/j.w.barrett9/Joe#


http://picasaweb.google.com/j.w.barrett9/India2#

The Third Month

For those of you who have already read this on the Princeton website I apologize for not yet having something new to post, for those of you who haven't, here is a summary of our third month in India.

As we entered the second month in our new hometown, we began to perfect the ability to absorb and adapt to the constantly hectic pace of life in Varanasi, just as our mouths have perfected the ability to recover from chai burns. While at first one premature sip of hot chai would rob our mouths of the capacity to taste for days, our tongues now heal quickly or do not even register the initial burn at all. The same goes for our adjustments to the realities of our new everyday life. Now, activities, such as navigating the maze-like alleyways, buying the foods for breakfast (each from a different street vendor), arguing with rickshaw wallas, or biking on the massively congested streets, that at first seemed daunting and impossible, are completed without thought or hesitation.
As we have grown accustomed to our new town, our new town has slowly begun to recognize us in return and each of us has become friends with a variety of people in our Assi Ghat community. On any given day, you could find Andrew conversing with his wrestler friends at the Akhara, Shaina or Chhaya hanging out with one of the dhobi (clothes washer) families, Lizzie talking to her friends from work or the fruit seller, who gives her and only her good prices, and me talking to my students and their friends on the ghats. At night, when we reconvene after our days of work, we visit the many different friends of the Dragons program in our area. Andrew and I often visit our anday (egg) walla, who cooks us heaping, spicy plates of egg chow mein, while his other regular customers overwhelm us with endless questions in Hindi, which we mostly understand, and Bhojpuri, which we definitely do not.
Our new friendships, however, have not been limited to the human members of our community. During our time in Varanasi we have begun to recognize and name many of the variety of wild animals who roam around our alleys. Multiple times every day we will encounter one of our new animal friends, whether it be one of the stray dogs that Andrew has befriended, the cow who visits our Hindi teacher’s house for snacks, or a young goat we named Tolstoy, who is suffering from some unknown disease resulting in tremendous hair loss.
Though our time spent with new friends, both human and non-human, has been fun, it has not been nearly as rewarding as our time spent at work. Following the completion of our intensive Hindi course, and our switch to a reduced level of classes, all of us have begun to work full time at our service sites. Shaina has spent the month writing up a proposal for Guria, an organization working in the red light district to combat sex trafficking. Guria, aside from prosecuting sex traffickers, empowers women to live and work in exploitation-free environments, and provides a safe space for the women’s children in a non-formal education center. The proposal outlines a year-long project combating human slavery and trafficking in India, specifically focusing on Eastern Uttar Pradesh. She is submitting a statement of interest to the U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, in order to get a grant to fund the project.

Chhaya’s students are working on plays (Danny and the Dinosaur and Alice in Wonderland). In addition to her teaching work, Chhaya has started work as an advisor to one of the four houses for boarding students at Nirman, an innovative school with a holistic approach to education, and is helping all the houses come up with ideas for environmental projects. She looks forward to organizing and creating activities and experiments for the school’s science lab and resource center.
Lizzie has continued to find her work at the Kiran Center, an organization in a village about an hour from Varanasi that works for the education, rehabilitation, and empowerment of differently-abled children and young adults through schools, physiotherapy, and vocational training, incredibly rewarding. She is still working on the new crochet unit with a group of Art and Design trainees who never fail to make her laugh, but she has traded her work with food preservation for teaching English. Her classes are composed of teachers, faculty, and vocational trainees, and she is perpetually inspired by the enthusiasm and dedication of her students.
Andrew is still getting dirty at Bal Ashram, both a site of spiritual worship and an orphanage for small children. He has been working on the Ashram’s new Eco-Project, a sustainable, organic farm, using primitive tools that he has never seen before, even in Hollywood. Additionally, after finishing an assignment to edit a series of stories that had previously been translated into English from Italian, he is now taking a highly valued teacher’s reference book and inputting its information to their computer system. This is necessary due to the fact that this book is the only one of its kind and the single copy available at the ashram was produced using a typewriter.
I have continued my normal schedule of office work, including writing sections of World Literacy’s (WLC) yearly report to the Canadian government and business planning in the morning and teaching at one of WLC’s local schools in the afternoon. WLC is an NGO dedicated to providing literacy classes to illiterate adults and children who are unable to afford school, and empowering the women in villages both in the Varanasi District and in other impoverished areas of the state of Uttar Pradesh. The most fun and rewarding aspect of my work has been the time spent with my students, arguing about which of the 4 Hindi “t’s” is equivalent to the English “t,” talking about their exploits selling candles to gullible tourists on the ghats, and playing games of Carom (a game like pool, but with checkers pieces) during our breaks from homework.

Soon after we began our new work schedule, however, we promptly departed Varanasi and set out on a brief trip to an ashram in the important religious center of Ujjain. While the trip itself was relatively short, the distance traveled and time spent traveling, a 19 hour train ride both ways still seemed very long. Luckily for us, the train rides were anything but boring, as they provided us with excellent opportunities to read, catch up on sleep, and observe the villages and countryside (through both the windows and the open door of the train).
At the ashram we were graciously and lovingly welcomed by the swamis and their families who soon befriended us over meals and through ridiculous yoga positions, arm wrestling, and time spent listening to Michael Jackson. Our days in the ashram were filled with yoga, attempts at meditation, informative lectures with Swami-ji, delicious meals, and some well-earned relaxation. When we were tired of the peace and quiet of the ashram we explored the equally peaceful and beautiful town of Ujjain, ate delicious pistachio ice cream in the main square, explored the countryside in a horse-drawn cart and visited an ancient Indian observatory located precisely on the Tropic of Cancer. On our last day in Ujjain we woke up at three in the morning and walked into town to attend the morning aarti (prayers) at the city’s main temple. Witnessing the intricate procedures of the aarti, during which the priests bathe a linga, an object used to worship Shiva, in water, milk, ghee and ashes, was a dramatic and somewhat unusual experience that left us bewildered and with many questions for the Swami.
When we returned to Varanasi we quickly resumed our normal routine of service, dodging cows in tight gulleys, and Hindi class during the week and relaxing and exploring on the weekend. This routine, like all routines in India, however, was interrupted by the arrival of wedding season. Though we had been warned of its arrival, wedding season actually snuck up on us; when I came home from work one day, I was brought to a pre-wedding party upstairs in my building and was coerced into dancing by a group of 30 women holding the pre-wedding party. Forced dancing aside, all of us have greatly enjoyed the variety of weddings we have attended so far, due to the fact that food is always delicious (and sometimes non-veg), the music is great, and there is always a large number of guests eager to talk to us and show us around. We are enthusiastically looking forward to the big weddings (in Shaina and Andrew’s respective families) coming up during the next few weeks.
Aside from weddings, November, like October, has been a month full of festivals both new and old. The month began with the Hindu holiday of Dev Deepavali, a celebration unique to the city of Banaras, during which all of the city’s ghats are illuminated by both candles and dramatic Christmas-like lights. To enjoy the full splendor of the night, we spent two hours on a boat, gliding past the fiery ghats, while enjoying the fireworks above and sampling paan (a mixture of tobacco, Betel nuts, sugar, coconut, and gooey stuff) the quintessential Banaras indulgence. We also enjoyed a relatively simple celebration of Thanksgiving, consisting of tandoori chicken for the mansahaaris (meat eaters) among us, ravioli for the shakahaaris (vegetarians), and apple pie with ice cream for everybody. Finally, just as the month was ending, we were shocked by the end products of Bakrid, a Muslim holiday, which revolves mostly around the slaughter of goats.

As the month of December begins, our group is confident that we will continue to fare better than the unfortunate Tolstoy and are looking forward to new challenges at work and more time to explore the mysteries of our new town. We are especially looking forward to a week-long trip to the state of Rajasthan in mid-December and to celebrating the upcoming holidays with our host families.“Agle Baar Tak!”Until next time!

If you are interested this link (http://www.princeton.edu/bridgeyear/updates/) will take to the Princeton Bridge Year Website where you can find info on the other Bridge Year locations.

The Sun Temple

On a horse-drawn carriage tour of the countryside surrounding Ujjain, we happened upon a temple complex that at first glance could only be described as paradise. The temple itself, brightly illuminated by the late-afternoon sun, rose up upon a hill on the center of an island. Beneath the temple situated in the river itself was the second and more beautiful half of the complex: a series of 52 interconnected pools with small temples scattered on islands among them.
Eager to explore this beautiful site, we climbed out of the horse carts and mounted the steps to the temple. We circled the building, admiring the arches and pillars and searching for the entrance. Eventually we found it, ducked inside, and explored the abandoned stone building, which was lit only by sunlight slanting through the boarded-up windows. We then left the building and descended onto the walkways among the pools and began to explore, enjoying the beauty of the temples reflected in the water.
Unfortunately, the more we walked among the pools, the more it became evident that the site was not as pure and beautiful as it had appeared to be from above. The water in most of the pools was stagnant and filled with garbage. The slots between the pools, in which water should have been coursing in intricate patterns designed to aid in meditation, were dry, turned defective by the mud, plastic, and abandoned clothes that littered the site. The grotto-like pools underneath the arcades were worst of all, as they had become so choked with refuse that in some places there was no water at all.
My immediate reaction at the state of the pools was anger. “How could such an important historical site have been allowed to fall into such a state? Why didn’t someone do something about it?” The more I thought about these things the more furious at the negligence of the Indian government I become and the more I began to hope that someone would rehabilitate the site and return it to its former glory.
Later that day, I was struck by a new and different emotion. I had to admit that despite the disgusting amounts of trash, there was an undeniable beauty in the decrepitude of the temple complex. Additionally, the abandonment of the sun temple complex had bestowed upon it a sense of calm – it was free of all beggars, touts, and annoying tourists – that is rarely found in India.
The truth is, however, that this second emotion is incorrect and selfish. It is selfish because though the temple may still be beautiful now, the state in which is in ensures that it will not be beautiful for future generations. The fact that a place is beautiful while it is slowly decaying does not change the fact that is decaying. Thus, to let the status quo continue is to doom the temple to destruction and historical obscurity. At the same time, the burst of reckless anger that I felt towards the Indian government is not productive either, simply because the government has a plethora of much more pressing issues to deal with. Still, it is important to note that all over India important historical locations are disappearing (hint: there may be another yak on this topic) and that sooner or later, someone is going to have to do something about it.

More photos

The link in the previous post will now also take you to more pictures of Varanasi, as well as pictures of Ujjain and the countryside of Madhya Pradesh. Enjoy!

Photos

The following link should connect you with roughly the first half (the internet stopped working halfway through the upload) of my pictures from the trip. The pictures do not yet have captions, hopefully I will have time to label them soon, but just so you know what you are looking at the places pictured, in order, are:
Kausani and Kanda (in the northern province of Uttaranchal)
Delhi
Varanasi and the surrounding area (including a nearby village and Sarnath)
http://picasaweb.google.com/j.w.barrett9/Joe#

more pictures of Varanasi and our recent trip to Ujjain will be coming soon

Open Door Policy

During the two and half months we have spent in India so far, we have had the pleasure of traveling across large sections of the northern part of the country by what is probably the best and most convenient form of long distance transportation in India, the train. The train lines are very much the strength of modern Indian, as the extensive networks of tracks carry natural resources and people to every corner of the vast and rapidly developing country. Our recent journey across the states of Uttar and Madhya Pradesh, however, allowed me to see sections of India that, while close to the train, are well outside the developing world.
The journey began when we arrived at the station south of Varanasi a little before 4 am on Friday morning. Our arrival, however, turned out to be a tad premature as our train, as usual in India, was over an hour late. While waiting for the train we wrapped ourselves in our shawls or coats and tried to ignore the constant stares of our fellow travelers, a hallmark of the trip, and quietly fall back asleep on the dark platform. Eventually the train arrived and we quickly lifted our luggage aboard and crawled into our narrow berths eager to sleep for a few extra hours.
Upon waking, I slithered out of my bunk and tried to climb down to the floor without waking the people below me or smashing my head into the low ceiling (I failed at one of these and thus had a dull headache for part of the morning). Once I was safely on the floor and in my sandals I walked down the corridor and pushed my way past the men brushing their teeth with neem sticks to get in line for the bathroom. After using the bathroom (always an adventure on the violently rocking trains) I, copying the other early risers on the train, walked over to the open compartment door, and after firmly grabbing onto the railing, leaned out* into the wind whistling past the train.
Though it is impossible to recount everything I saw, simply because I saw way too much, I can sum up most of my observations by saying that from the speeding vehicle I was able to see the village lifestyles – how the vast majority of the Indian population still lives. From the train I watched old men and boys herding buffaloes, cows, and goats across landscapes barren except for low lying shrubs. I watched women hard at work with sickles harvesting crops in small, lush, green patches and then carrying on their heads the massive bundles of stalks back to their mud houses. But more importantly I saw where the modernization of India has failed: in piles of rusted metal, large abandoned concrete structures, and dry and broken irrigation ditches, while the villagers continue to live in a distant era connected to the modern world only by the occasional train.
While, I don’t know nearly enough to determine whether these villages are flourishing green utopias or struggling communities badly in need of government assistance (I would guess that it is a fine balance with many villages falling into both categories) the door of the train has exposed India to me in ways that living in a city could not. At the same time, however, numerous fleeting glances from a moving train are nothing more than an introduction. They are nothing to base theories or ideas upon and they don’t provide nearly enough information. In other words, while the view from the door was spectacular and eye-opening, next time I think that I will have to climb out of the door (when the train is safely stopped) instead of just standing in it.

* I would like to assure all parents reading this piece that when I say “leaning out of the train” I don’t mean that anything other than my head was outside of the train and that the rest of my body was firmly and safely planted inside the train at all times.

Dancing

The man nodded at me from across the roof and began to walk towards me. Figuring he was one of Shaina’s relatives, I nodded back, then said hello and asked him some questions in broken Hindi. He responded in a language that was unintelligible and after trying to make out his words for several minutes I realized that his lips were full of paan and that my attempts at conversation were pointless. Silence ensued, one of those bizarre Indian awkward silences, and we stood there listening to the music and staring at the view. Eventually he broke the silence with a garbled question, in which I could only make out one word “dancing.” I figured he wanted to teach me to dance, and since Indians are generally good dancers, I said “yes.” It was a terrible mistake. Before my eyes, the man who had been Shaina’s forty year old pot-bellied uncle with a mouthful of paan morphed into Michael Jackson and began to gyrate and thrust his way all over the roof. I was shocked, but not as shocked as I became when I realized that he didn’t want to teach me to dance; he wanted me, Shaina’s eighteen year old brother and all of his friends to dance with him.

One might wonder how I ended up in this ridiculous situation. Well, the main reason behind my predicament was the fact that it was Diwali. It’s very hard to describe what celebrating Diwali in India is like, but I think Shaina put it best when she said “Diwali is like if the 4th of July and Christmas were being celebrated on the same day in a city that just won the Super Bowl.” Yet even this description understates the dramatic nature of the celebrations and it might be even more accurate to add that the city, in which these celebrations are taking place, is also under siege.

Our group Diwali celebrations began very simply. We celebrated, compared to the rest of the city, in a refined and dignified manner, by lighting numerous small diyas (oil candles), eating sweets and setting off a couple of relatively basic fireworks on our roof. After our brief party was over, I began to head home for a totally dance-free evening, until Shaina called to inform me that her family was having a party on their roof and had purchased an obscene amount of fireworks. This Diwali, the city of Varanasi spent around 2 million rupees on fireworks, and Shaina’s family must have accounted for at least a quarter of that amount. Needless to say, I immediately turned my bike around and headed back across town, unaware of the fate that awaited me.

I was already enjoying many aspects of the party on the roof before I was confronted by the dancing men. For a while, I simply got to relax, observe the view of the unregulated and unplanned fireworks show going on all over the city, and even make my contribution to the show by launching some fireworks of my own. Yet, as you already know, this relative calm couldn’t last forever and eventually my evening was interrupted by Shaina’s whirling dervish of an uncle.

Though I tried to hold out for a while, I eventually I gave in and joined in the dancing circle of men. How long I was trapped I the frenzied circle of flailing limbs I can’t remember, but after what seemed like a very long time, the music stopped and Shaina’s brother and uncle began to argue about what song to play next (an old Bollywood classic or the newest hit) and I quietly made my escape.

Looking back on the event, I still feel slightly dazed. In the end, I’m happy that I danced. After all, I embraced Indian culture, gave Shaina and her home stay sister endless material to laugh about, and ended up having a lot of fun.