I got a mountain hat!
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Chai Chai Chai
I shall now describe two separate moments in Mussoorie that I have fallen in love with and really emphasize the charm of this town of 35,000 people (remember Banaras holds over 2,000,000).
Everyday I, often accompanied by others, leave the hotel for a few hours to wander around the town (the Mall, the allies built into the hillside, the numerous interlinking staircases, the woods) invariably we end up at the Mussoorie Sweet Shop. The Mussoorie Sweet Shop is built into a corner, open on two sides cluttered with tables and benches, a counter selling samosas and sweets, and three employees. Everyday we drink chai there, sometimes several times a day. There chai is 7 ruppees a cup, perfectly sweet, perfectly spiced, and always freshly made. They also sell some of the best Samosas I have ever had, and delicious hot milk with cardamom, dates, and almonds. It is this Mussoorie Sweet Shop that makes me feel so at home.
The next place we found on one of our treks through town, into the northern Landor Bazaar. This little café, hidden in ally we spied and vowed to return. What we expected to be a place selling chai, samosas, and gulab juman, turned out instead to sell Swedish Pancakes, Chicken Pesto Pasta, Momos, Oatmeal Raisin cookies, and delicious mint tea. The space is the size of my brother’s room (pretty tiny) and is surrounded by windows. It I warm and you can look out over the street below, and remain entirely hidden from street life. What a wonder!
Oh also Mussoorie is filled to the brim with the most beautiful Kashmiri embroidery on pashmina scarves n’ shawls n’ silk cotton wool fabrics. So ladies place your orders ;) I bought a grey wool shawl for 150 rupees (XE.com)
Oh the Abode of the GODS
Mussoorie. It seems that for all of us, or at least most of us, Mussoorie is a paradise. It is hands down I think one of the most picturesque places I have ever been. When placed into comparison with Banaras, it seems we are on the opposite side of the world.
To begin Mussorrie is cold. It is covered in swirling mist, it is wet, its weather is entirely and totally unpredictable, which is why this place draws me so. At any moment throughout the day one can be caught in a rainstorm that rivals biblical proportions. And while the threat of rain hangs over our head daily, hourly, at any moment the sun can come out to illuminate the valley in the most glorious glow. I think the best way to explain this (I was unfortunately without a camera yesterday) was while walking along the Mall (Mussoorie’s mostly pedestrian thoroughfare) the cold’s parted as the sun began to set and it was as if I were looking a the unfolding of a baroque painting. It seemed as if the valley had become a cauldron as mist and fog and cloud slowly spread and the clouds already stationed in the sky reflected the numinous colors of the setting sun. The sun shot through the clouds in sweeping rays, and everywhere you looked a new composition presented it self—these clouds here are extremely expressive. As golden sun streamed from behind the mountain, the clouds framing a central point, it really looked as if Jesus Christ could at any moment appear. It was wild. And then it rained.
We are staying at the Shiva Continental hotel, which is built into the hillside. We are still doing the requisite 4 hours of Hindi a day, except now Virendra makes a point of forcing us to interact with Hindi speakers, which is great, even though embarrassing. The other day while walkingI stumbled upon Virendraji and Craig holding Hindi practice in a chai shop. I dropped in and thus began our whirlwind adventure back home interacting with local shopkeepers and Mussoorie-ites. Both in broken Hindi spoke to the laundryman, the chaiboy, the phototakingman, the englishwineshopman, the localliquorsellingman, the barber (who I got my first straight razor shave from the next day. AWESOME and my skin is so soft now) thefruitsellingman, etc etc. Each situation that presents itself Virendra thinks up new and fantastic ways to simultaneously embarrass us and teach us Hindi. He is a great teacher, and maybe one of the funniest men I have ever met.
What is amazing about Mussoorie is I immediately feel at home. I feel comfortable and I want to stay here forever. I never thought I would crave the cold weather, but what it really does it makes me cherish things more. Could that sound anymore sentimental? The smells here and the sounds do not accost you instead they complement your memories and form new ones. The place makes me appreciate warmth, and hot tea, and fires, and sweaters, oh and of course puppies, and chocolate, and daffodils, and big hugs from grandma, and kisses from Santa Claus.
But, here you will catch glimpses of life behind glass, with fires and heaters, and warming curries and you really fall in love. Mussoorie is like Europe, like Austria, but way better. It is cheaper. It is filled with Indians. It is filled with Indian food. But hanging about it is a sense of European nostalgia. Also in Mussoorie I can begin to blend in because here there is such intense mixture of cultures: Nepali, Bengali, South India, Tibetan, Chinese, Kashmiri, Afghani, Central Asian. It is an amazing confluence of cultures and it is has taken my heart.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
MUSSOORIE
On Monday we leave to Mussoorie, and I cannot cannot cannot wait! I don't know if I have ever been so excited to go anywhere in my life! Why? Why am I more excited to go to Mussoorrie then I eve was to come to India? Why? Well I will tell you.
Currently for the last 3 weeks India has been 90+ degrees everyday. Everyday you smell of sweat and dust, of dirt, 'that unwashed academic smell of dirty hair, leftover food, dirty cups, and stale stale air." I am sure you have smelled that smell, and if not I hope you never do. Everyday you sweat through at least two undershirts, you, who in America never sweat. Everyday you are simultaneously baked, broiled, and fried under the intensity of the Gangetic Plain Sun.
That is why I am excited to go to Mussoorie! Mussoorie is in the state of Uttarnachal, in the foot hills of the Himalayas. It was once the playground of the British Raj, who, like us, retreated in the heat of the summer to the hills. Apparently in those days Mussorie was the favorite place for bored colonial sahibs to conduct illicit sexual affairs! Now it is a favorite haunting ground of Indian honeymooners!
We will stay 2 weeks in Mussoorie, where everyday we will work, for 4 hrs, on our Hindi! Apparently by the end of the two weeks we will be very good at Hindi, or at least that is what I hope.
The train ride to Mussoorie will be a twenty- four hour affair, as well as a bus ride from Dhera Dhun, but I will gladly endure that in exchange for sweaters, and mist shrouded hills, and cold nights!!! I have never craved the cold as I do right now!
This is Mussoorie....
Currently for the last 3 weeks India has been 90+ degrees everyday. Everyday you smell of sweat and dust, of dirt, 'that unwashed academic smell of dirty hair, leftover food, dirty cups, and stale stale air." I am sure you have smelled that smell, and if not I hope you never do. Everyday you sweat through at least two undershirts, you, who in America never sweat. Everyday you are simultaneously baked, broiled, and fried under the intensity of the Gangetic Plain Sun.
That is why I am excited to go to Mussoorie! Mussoorie is in the state of Uttarnachal, in the foot hills of the Himalayas. It was once the playground of the British Raj, who, like us, retreated in the heat of the summer to the hills. Apparently in those days Mussorie was the favorite place for bored colonial sahibs to conduct illicit sexual affairs! Now it is a favorite haunting ground of Indian honeymooners!
We will stay 2 weeks in Mussoorie, where everyday we will work, for 4 hrs, on our Hindi! Apparently by the end of the two weeks we will be very good at Hindi, or at least that is what I hope.
The train ride to Mussoorie will be a twenty- four hour affair, as well as a bus ride from Dhera Dhun, but I will gladly endure that in exchange for sweaters, and mist shrouded hills, and cold nights!!! I have never craved the cold as I do right now!
This is Mussoorie....
And this is Banaras
Also it must be admitted that both are pretty accurate exaggerations
Friday, September 10, 2010
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Routine
I guess I haven't really filled anybody in on WHAT I am doing in India and what my daily experiences are here. So here goes.......
I am here in Banaras with the Wisconsin College Year in India Program, and for all its faults (its utter lack of organization) I am grateful to be doing this through them. Wisconsin's South Asia Program is truly amazing and very supportive and very interested in us children. This program has been around since the 1960s and many of the people who are luminaries in the field of South Asian Studies participated in this program.
The way it is broken down is you (or me) take Hindi class everyday for 4 hrs a day. You meet at 9 am at the Program House- the house maintained by the program for the student's participating- and begin Hindi after a continental breakfast of muesli, cornflakes, porridge, and nutella on toast.
The Program House is where almost all activity occurs. We have some computers here, and wireless. There is a library filled with books about India! We share our meals here (lunch and breakfast). Our laundry is delivered here. Our days are whiled away within the house. Only one room has air-conditioning- I try to avoid it, even though I am sitting in it right now.
Besides Hindi we partake in Tutorials, which we have to have 45 contact hours a semester with our tutorial advisor. A tutorial is a lesson in India culture and society: Sanskrit, Urdu, Kathak and Bharatnatyam dances, silk weaving, yoga, minature painting, astrology, ceramics. I am learning this semester who to weave silk. At the semesters end I have to write a 20 page paper detailing the silk making process, its history and evolution, and my own analysis on the trade and art.
I have meet with my advisor, Saleem, and have already spent TWO whole hours weaving silk on a pit loom in warren of lanes in the center of the city. Saleem lives in a one room brick house. Half his house is taken up by the large pit loom and the other half holds a cot, a series of locked suitcases, a radio, and daily utensils. His house has a huge open window that is covered by a shutter, when open it fills the room with light and breeze.
The main academic point however of the program is not the tutorials and maybe not even Hindi. The purpose of the program is to prepare students for later academic writing. Throughout the course of the year we work on a field research project that we design and implement ourselves regarding any topic of Banarasi life. It is our job to research and interview, read and write, explore and understand India and Banaras.
MY RESEARCH: In Banaras throughout the course of 20th century there have been around 20 cinema halls that have daily played popular Bollywood favorites to Banarasis. These cinema halls have been important institutions in Banaras city life. Within the halls of these theaters are the collective memories of generations and possibly even an understanding of India itself ( a little dramatic, but hey it is cinema). However, with the advent of the multiplex these old time theaters have shut down, left to fall into disrepair. Multiplexes appeal to the new urban young middle class, spaces of cool airconditioned luxury. A rarified space of money and privilege. For many Banarasis the multiplex is beyond their means and effectively cut the masses out of popular entertainment. Because of the multiplex only 3 old time theaters remain, thus really affecting the local economy. Each cinema hall employs around 12 people, which means 12 families at each hall being supported. That has effectively been ended. I think this problem speaks a lot about the direction Indian society is headed, what it represents, and the message it portrays. This is all very nascent, but it has never been done by a student with the Program-- so it looks like I am Trailblazer baby!
MY HOME: I live with 2 other guys Max and Craig in the house of a wealthy older woman named Mrs. Dwivedi. Dwivedi spends her time in both Delhi and Banaras and rents out the bottom floor of her house to Wisconsin students. There are 4 rooms around a central courtyard garden. There is a communal kitchen. There is covered veranda where there are some wooden chairs and couch, as well as a dinning table. There is a common room, tastefully decorated with a TV and filled with books. Currently the house is under construction, but will soon be finished-- allowing the dust to settle and my uber early mornings to maybe cease. Over break the entire courtyard will be paved in marble and she will be putting down a mat in the central "garden" for Max to practice sitar and Craig to do yoga. Her mother is 106.
i like my room. i like india. india is crowded. india is overwhelming. my room is quiet. i read in my room. sometimes when i am in my room i forget i am in india. that is strange to be remined that i am living in india. it is strange but i like it. outside my window are dogs and cows and goats and a lot of people. it
I am here in Banaras with the Wisconsin College Year in India Program, and for all its faults (its utter lack of organization) I am grateful to be doing this through them. Wisconsin's South Asia Program is truly amazing and very supportive and very interested in us children. This program has been around since the 1960s and many of the people who are luminaries in the field of South Asian Studies participated in this program.
The way it is broken down is you (or me) take Hindi class everyday for 4 hrs a day. You meet at 9 am at the Program House- the house maintained by the program for the student's participating- and begin Hindi after a continental breakfast of muesli, cornflakes, porridge, and nutella on toast.
The Program House is where almost all activity occurs. We have some computers here, and wireless. There is a library filled with books about India! We share our meals here (lunch and breakfast). Our laundry is delivered here. Our days are whiled away within the house. Only one room has air-conditioning- I try to avoid it, even though I am sitting in it right now.
Besides Hindi we partake in Tutorials, which we have to have 45 contact hours a semester with our tutorial advisor. A tutorial is a lesson in India culture and society: Sanskrit, Urdu, Kathak and Bharatnatyam dances, silk weaving, yoga, minature painting, astrology, ceramics. I am learning this semester who to weave silk. At the semesters end I have to write a 20 page paper detailing the silk making process, its history and evolution, and my own analysis on the trade and art.
I have meet with my advisor, Saleem, and have already spent TWO whole hours weaving silk on a pit loom in warren of lanes in the center of the city. Saleem lives in a one room brick house. Half his house is taken up by the large pit loom and the other half holds a cot, a series of locked suitcases, a radio, and daily utensils. His house has a huge open window that is covered by a shutter, when open it fills the room with light and breeze.
The main academic point however of the program is not the tutorials and maybe not even Hindi. The purpose of the program is to prepare students for later academic writing. Throughout the course of the year we work on a field research project that we design and implement ourselves regarding any topic of Banarasi life. It is our job to research and interview, read and write, explore and understand India and Banaras.
MY RESEARCH: In Banaras throughout the course of 20th century there have been around 20 cinema halls that have daily played popular Bollywood favorites to Banarasis. These cinema halls have been important institutions in Banaras city life. Within the halls of these theaters are the collective memories of generations and possibly even an understanding of India itself ( a little dramatic, but hey it is cinema). However, with the advent of the multiplex these old time theaters have shut down, left to fall into disrepair. Multiplexes appeal to the new urban young middle class, spaces of cool airconditioned luxury. A rarified space of money and privilege. For many Banarasis the multiplex is beyond their means and effectively cut the masses out of popular entertainment. Because of the multiplex only 3 old time theaters remain, thus really affecting the local economy. Each cinema hall employs around 12 people, which means 12 families at each hall being supported. That has effectively been ended. I think this problem speaks a lot about the direction Indian society is headed, what it represents, and the message it portrays. This is all very nascent, but it has never been done by a student with the Program-- so it looks like I am Trailblazer baby!
MY HOME: I live with 2 other guys Max and Craig in the house of a wealthy older woman named Mrs. Dwivedi. Dwivedi spends her time in both Delhi and Banaras and rents out the bottom floor of her house to Wisconsin students. There are 4 rooms around a central courtyard garden. There is a communal kitchen. There is covered veranda where there are some wooden chairs and couch, as well as a dinning table. There is a common room, tastefully decorated with a TV and filled with books. Currently the house is under construction, but will soon be finished-- allowing the dust to settle and my uber early mornings to maybe cease. Over break the entire courtyard will be paved in marble and she will be putting down a mat in the central "garden" for Max to practice sitar and Craig to do yoga. Her mother is 106.
i like my room. i like india. india is crowded. india is overwhelming. my room is quiet. i read in my room. sometimes when i am in my room i forget i am in india. that is strange to be remined that i am living in india. it is strange but i like it. outside my window are dogs and cows and goats and a lot of people. it
Saturday, September 4, 2010
Tulsi Ghat
Yesterday was a great day, it reminded me why I love India and how happy and lucky I am to be here. Well first off the weather was AMAZING, it was maybe at its peak 80, but overcast and with a breeze all day so it was pretty cool! Hopefully this continues.
Also I stumbled on the most amazing place- it is by no means secret but it is extremely peaceful. Peace is at a premium in this city. So you go down this warren of lanes, it seems like that will be a common phrase throughout this year, a warren of lanes, and suddenly you are met with a dead end. This shocking blue building stands in between you and the river and as you walk towards it the river does not reveal herself ( the Ganges is a female goddess), suddenly, however, it opens up, to the side of your vision, in this huge expansive panorama of Ganga Ma flowing past and the green banks opposite.
The ghat is extraordinarily steep and quiet. People go there not for ceremony it seems, but to silently reflect, to do laundry, and to swim. It really was so achingly gorgeous. It really was what I needed. When you Grandma come to Banaras I will be sure to show you!
Also I stumbled on the most amazing place- it is by no means secret but it is extremely peaceful. Peace is at a premium in this city. So you go down this warren of lanes, it seems like that will be a common phrase throughout this year, a warren of lanes, and suddenly you are met with a dead end. This shocking blue building stands in between you and the river and as you walk towards it the river does not reveal herself ( the Ganges is a female goddess), suddenly, however, it opens up, to the side of your vision, in this huge expansive panorama of Ganga Ma flowing past and the green banks opposite.
The ghat is extraordinarily steep and quiet. People go there not for ceremony it seems, but to silently reflect, to do laundry, and to swim. It really was so achingly gorgeous. It really was what I needed. When you Grandma come to Banaras I will be sure to show you!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Last Night
Last night was by far hands down one of the most miserable night of my life.
I am sorry if there has been so much complaining of late, but India is truly a country that eats you alive and shits you out anew. Currently we are all sick or weak or exhausted or dehydrated. But while I have had some bad nights here in the past, this one without a doubt takes the cake.
It started off great. I was on the mend, and would argue still am, and we met at Hotel Haifa for a classical dance performance of Kathak, which was truly beautiful! The dance involves a complex series of gestures and movements all to the rhythms of the tabla (Indian drum), sitar, and harmonium (that which lays the base of rhythm). Following the 45 minute performance and its riot of color, movement, symbol, and vibrancy, we ate a small meal together at the hotel. By 9.30 I was exhausted and headed home off to bed. I slept soundly for 3 to 4 hours, until suddenly I violently awoke. It was not another case of grumbling bowels or overwhelming nausea. Instead the electricity had gone out and with it my FAN.
I was instantaneously lying in a pool of my own sweat, the heat like jell- or marshmallow fluff in the air. Literally gasping for air I tried every switch possible, hoping the turn back on the fan. It would not work until...... I am not sure if it is even working right now.
My room was like a sauna. A sauna filled with old gym clothes, the smell of damp, the feeling of damp revolting. I tried to read to while away the hours, until at around 3.30 I settled on a movie. That movie "Away we Go" was a great 2 hours well spent. By the time 5.00 hit there was no chance of going to sleep again-- Banaras had begun to wake up and right outside my window a huge dog fight ensued.
It was the worst worst worst night ever. period. and i hope never to relive it.
"What can't be cured must be endured," but it really makes you start questioning things doesn't it :)
I am sorry if there has been so much complaining of late, but India is truly a country that eats you alive and shits you out anew. Currently we are all sick or weak or exhausted or dehydrated. But while I have had some bad nights here in the past, this one without a doubt takes the cake.
It started off great. I was on the mend, and would argue still am, and we met at Hotel Haifa for a classical dance performance of Kathak, which was truly beautiful! The dance involves a complex series of gestures and movements all to the rhythms of the tabla (Indian drum), sitar, and harmonium (that which lays the base of rhythm). Following the 45 minute performance and its riot of color, movement, symbol, and vibrancy, we ate a small meal together at the hotel. By 9.30 I was exhausted and headed home off to bed. I slept soundly for 3 to 4 hours, until suddenly I violently awoke. It was not another case of grumbling bowels or overwhelming nausea. Instead the electricity had gone out and with it my FAN.
I was instantaneously lying in a pool of my own sweat, the heat like jell- or marshmallow fluff in the air. Literally gasping for air I tried every switch possible, hoping the turn back on the fan. It would not work until...... I am not sure if it is even working right now.
My room was like a sauna. A sauna filled with old gym clothes, the smell of damp, the feeling of damp revolting. I tried to read to while away the hours, until at around 3.30 I settled on a movie. That movie "Away we Go" was a great 2 hours well spent. By the time 5.00 hit there was no chance of going to sleep again-- Banaras had begun to wake up and right outside my window a huge dog fight ensued.
It was the worst worst worst night ever. period. and i hope never to relive it.
"What can't be cured must be endured," but it really makes you start questioning things doesn't it :)
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