Mushkil

October 1st, 2010 --REALLY OCTOBER ALREADY? 1.5 months down, 2.5 to go! 

Georgetown with Jesus in Goa!

So about that Goa post that was meant to happen last week. Upon my 5:45 AM arrival from Goa's fabulous overnight semi-sleeper bus, I immediately got crackin'. This week was a bit of academic hell, providing me with a much-needed wake-up call that a) I am a student and b) I need to amp up my commitment to Hindi and c) I might be having too much fun. Although I managed to surface after a paper, a research project, a presentation, a written exam, and the hardest language test I have ever endured, this week wiped me out! Mushkil, the title of this entry, translates directly to "difficult" in Hindi.

Watermelon juice makes everything better

I almost decided to end this blog. It is terribly easy to get behind with reporting my experiences in India since something happens every moment that is worth reflecting on. I am starting to look at more "big picture" themes as I briskly walk to my 6:30 Pranayam (also spelled Pranayama) breathing  practice, read Hindi signs, watch the unpacking of milk bags and the stray dogs getting frisky, enjoy fresh watermelon juice whenever I'm willing to splurge $1.60, laugh with my great ex-pats, chuckle at my text forward messages from Indian friends, feel the tug of the 800th beggar kid, watch the thousandth click of a cell-phone camera by some creepy guy, struggle with my Hindi prof's high expectations, try and find some peace with some traffic dodging runs, and consume TONS of carbo-happy food with my fingers. I have no daily routine and am learning to live without expectations.  


Travel can be one of the most rewarding forms of introspection.

-- Lawrence Durrell

garlic mussels

I definitely feel a test of inner strength and am challenged in ways other than I anticipated. I am philosophizing a bit, but the life lessons kind of hit me like a TATA Goods carrier. For every light moment, there is a heavy one. Attitude matters. One chooses to be happy. Sometimes a smile really can make someone's day.

Despite the giggling girls in the neighborhood wanting to touch my hand, the warmness of Sarah's host parents' decadent banana cake with extra homemade ghee, and the calm stillness I feel watching Swapna play her violin, this is a world swarmed with difficult sights. Children whipping themselves for money, a bloody dog suffering a bizarre traffic-induced death, tears of a host mother missing her ambitious U.S. bound children caught up in India's brain drain, and youth frustrated with their unrepresentative democracy calling for dictator-led development.

Wretchedness amongst serenity. Cruelty next to kindness. Such richness I can't contextualize in this forum.

St Augustine Tower

We learn such fascinating things everyday. A guest lecturer explained the practice of Vipassna, a kind of meditation originating in India and then spread to Burma and the rest of Southeast Asia. At Tilar jail in New Delhi, 9000 of the 10,000 inmates await their verdict. Even though the poor conditions can make an inmate a literal prisoner of his own fear, anger, and desire, India began testing vipassna workshops in prisons in 1993. I was moved by this vision of an Ashram prison that has turned "criminal killers into saints". Even I find these concepts a bit hokey, but realizing the power of the mind through my own meditation makes me believe there might be something useful here. Apparently US prisons have tried vipassna workshops as well-10 days of silent meditation.

My public health professor is very active in rural reproductive health and tells the most enthralling stories. Even in this modern day, his daughter had to show her wedding night sheets to her in-laws to prove her virginity. Talking to college kids about "safe sex" means they nod enthusiastically perhaps without ever having seen a condom. Oh the stories...more to be continued.

St. Xavier Cathedral

I should share a little bit about Goa.

Calamari

It's beautiful. It's warm and tropical. The Arabian sea is very salty. Vendors are ruthless and persistent to the point of annoyance. Kingfisher is a great beer. The port wine is strong and fabulous with buttered garlic crabs. The Portuguese influence is uncanny--Catholics everywhere, "Jesus Knows" bumper stickers, nuns amongst bikini clad foreigners, Indians with names like Servio Fernandez (our favorite waiter).

We stayed for cheap cheap right next to Baga Beach, renting some two wheelers for exploring the low-season tourist atmosphere of North Goa. Goa was a microcosm of everything I love and hate about India. INCREDIBLE seafood, great weather and architecture balanced the harassment and creepiness of the cameras and cat-calls. I got pretty uncomfortable pretty fast. Granted, we were wearing much less clothing and it was very western, but so was everyone else! I felt good to go back to my head scarves and salwar kameze back in Pune city. Overall though, it was a fantastic, inexpensive paradise with a GREAT group of conversational, witty friends. The pictures speak better than my words...

This waiter was so great we came back for breakfast!

I'm using this weekend to catch up on work, put in some miles, and prep for our field slum development visit Wednesday-Friday in Mumbai. The line-up looks great. Sarah and I are staying Saturday and Sunday with Udayan (our friend from Georgetown)'s grandmother to do some sight-seeing and non-academic activities.

I think I'm hitting the point of culture shock I was so warned about--homesickness! I have many other things (like a project on youth political participation) and Bollywood films and trekking to entertain me.

It may be a few days until you get another post from me. Until then, namaste. And Happy Birthday Bapu. It's Gandhi's birthday today and liquor and meat are not sold, nor consumed in his honor.