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