Jessica's Blog

Palolem beach is nice, though weirdly hypnotizing. Day after day I have done nothing but eat, swim, and lie on the beach working on my sunglasses tan. This place is barely real. Once the season is over and all the tourists go home, so do the workers (from Nepal, Kashmir, Karnataka…). The beach shacks will be taken down and the beach deserted. I am in some tropical, ocean-side version of Disney Land. Where did India go?

I was starting to feel vaguely depressed by all this. But then, Kyle and I rented some scooters. And I wobbled my way out of town onto the open road.

Turns out, Goa is more than just beaches full of slow-roasting Europeans. It is gorgeous rice paddies, so lush and green they hurt your eyes. Decaying Portuguese churches. Steep valleys full of teetering palm trees. Stunning cliff-side views of huge expanses of sparkling ocean. And of course, pot-holes, cows and terrifying buses attempting to run you off the road.

Feeling much better now.

Varanasi is now 3 weeks in the past and is beginning to feel like a dream I had.

In the south, it’s hot but not too hot. Women walk around under black umbrellas to keep their skin from darkening too much in the sun. Kochi and Bangalore are wealthy cities where people drive brand new cars, speak a charming Indianized version of the Queen’s English, shop at designer stores and dine in revolving restaurants. You will only occasionally be confronted by a leper begging for change while your rickshaw stops at a traffic light (a traffic light!).

There are Christians here. I’ve seen churches that barely differ from Hindu temples honouring Shiva or Durga. People drape idols of a sari-clad Virgin Mary in marigolds and place burning incense at her feet. But also, in Bangalore, I peeked inside a revivalist church where a young guy wearing jeans and a polo shirt led his congregation in a devotional pop song with an acoustic guitar.

In that city, we stayed with a friend of a friend of a friend, who welcomed us into his spotless apartment with beers, Chinese food, and a feisty kitten. I got a haircut in a salon, and received a joyride on an illegally purchased Enfield Bullet that once belonged to Greenpeace.

Now I’m in Hampi. A surreal place where sun-kissed British and Isreali tourists stream in from the beaches of Goa to lounge around in a strange landscape of gigantic boulders and ancient ruins. I get a weird and unfriendly vibe from these people. Seems that we are all always slyly and silently sizing each other up. Most foreigners project one of two images: either you’re here for the party and aren’t ashamed to admit it, or you’re here desperately seeking an “authentic” experience of India, while looking down your nose at all your hopelessly insensitive and depraved fellow tourists. The vendors and restaurant owners don’t seem to care either way, as long as they make enough money this season to sustain their families for the upcoming long, hot and dead monsoon season. I really like it here but it’s all a bit gross.

Yesterday I rented a bicycle and ended up in a few small villages on the other side of the river from the tourist bazaar. I was invited into small mud homes, fed sweets and chai and confided in by hardworking mothers. This in exchange for letting some village kids try out my bike and take blurry pictures of me with my camera. Perhaps I’m one of the aforementioned types seeking that unattainable “authentic” experience, but I felt a lot more welcome and comfortable there than I do in the tourist hangouts.

Anyway. I am thinking of renting a motorcycle today (yes), and exploring the terrain a bit more. Then it’s on to Goa, where I’m really going to have to get used to all this.

Just returned from a week off in Rajasthan with my parents. During my trip back into Varanasi from the airport, the cab driver and I had a good discussion about some cultural differences between India and the homelands of the many tourists he meets daily through his job. “In your country,” he said, chuckling, “many people live together before marriage. You want love first. But in India, we know better. First marriage, and love comes later.”

He has a point. I feel a little like Varanasi and I have had an arranged marriage. A year ago, I didn’t have much desire to visit India. This was due more to ignorance than anything. At most, judging from the stories of more well-travelled friends, it seemed like an interesting place. I may have had a vague notion that, “yeah, it would be cool to go there one day.” I wouldn’t have guessed that by August, I would find myself struggling to cope in the midst of the most intense, colourful city in what is likely the most overwhelming country in the entire world.

I won’t say that I hated it at first. Even through the culture-shock, various bizarre illnesses, and homesickness I valued the experience. But if you had asked me then whether, after my 5 months here were up, I’d ever want to come back, I’d probably have answered no.

I feel differently now. Since October, we’ve been watching friends we’ve made here make their own departures from Varanasi. It’s been heart-wrenching. First Emily, then Debbie and the Swedes; next it will be us… With only a few weeks to go, the hope that I will someday visit this place again is the only thing consoling me. I think I’m in love?

Yesterday I recorded my flute teacher at practice (listen here). He is improvising on the raga I am currently trying to learn. I can’t listen to it too much because it kind of makes my chest hurt.

After class I attended a goodbye dinner for Lova at a quasi-Italian restaurant. There was a young Japanese boy there playing the tabla like he’d been studying it for 30 years. He was 8.

Music!

What am I going to do when I leave India and I don’t get to listen to Hindustani music everyday?

I had my first taste of travelling in India alone this weekend, full of highlights and lowlights. After two days in Delhi with the girls, I was left alone for a third day in the big city, before moving on to Agra.

Or at least I tried to move on to Agra. What was supposed to be a 3-hour train journey leaving at 5:30, ended up being a 10-hour train journey leaving at 10:30. Including the 6 hours of waiting time at the train station, I spent 16 hours trying to get to Agra. Please note that Agra is only 224 km from Delhi. The cold, dark, creepy journey was a certified nightmare. On the other hand, I saved on a hotel room that night! And I made friends with some giant cockroaches and a friendly Indian fellow, who tried to get me in on his get-rich-quick scheme by scrawling some flow charts on a napkin (this aside, he was actually very helpful with the train issue).

Due to lack of sleep, my day in Agra is a bit of a haze. It helped to make my viewing of the Taj Mahal particularly surreal. Funny how, at first, seeing the place in person just made me want to make comparisons to the images I’ve seen of it my whole life. It’s smaller than you think; the gardens leading up to it are not quite so perfectly manicured; it is overrun by tourists snapping photos of themselves in a variety of cringe-inducing poses. Once you get over the few differences between your idea of the Taj and the real thing, it’s not hard to readjust and see that it is very beautiful. At least I think I think it’s very beautiful, and am not just reiterating photo captions and tourist literature. Hmmm…. welcome to hyperreality. Thanks, Baudrillard.

After stops at the the Red Fort and Baby Taj (both very cool, and less theory-inducing), my rickshaw driver got tired and decided it was time for me to catch a government bus, which would take me the 30 km distance to meet my train back to Varanasi. Government buses are the ones you see all over India, so packed with people that they are literally hanging out the windows, sprawling on the roof or gripping onto the bumper. He took me to the bus bazaar, where I stood bewildered on a traffic divider while he dived into the dense crowds and traffic, looking for the correct bus. When he appeared again, he grabbed my arm, led me to the vehicle, pushed countless bodies aside and somehow squeezed me into a tiny space by the window at the very back of the bus. For 30 rupees, I got an hour-long ride to Tundla. I was the only white person in sight, and one of probably 3 women. I got some stares at first, but was soon forgotten and was able to enjoy just being a fly on the wall of a typical Indian transit vehicle.

It was great. Away from the tourist crowds, which automatically alter the dynamic, I think this was the first time I actually started to grasp the strange camaraderie between Indian people. It is somehow rough, careless and loving, all at the same time. On the brief rickshaw ride from the bus drop-off to the train station, for instance, a little girl, maybe 7 years-old, suddenly hopped into the seat next to me at an intersection. The driver and his friend just glanced at her and smiled. She rode along for maybe 10 minutes. When she reached her destination she just shouted and hopped off, no payment demanded. I haven’t quite gotten used to seeing unaccompanied children wandering around filthy, chaotic bazaars by themselves, especially the really young ones. But I think perhaps I haven’t been accounting for the community safety net. It’s there, just not in the form we’re used to.

Tundla Junction Railway Station was another treat. It is a giant dilapidated colonial remnant, and is absolutely overrun by pigeons. Thousands of them were nesting in the rafters and on every other conceivable surface, and the noise was deafening. Even the obnoxious train announcements were drowned out. After some waiting, and an uneventful overnight train journey, I’m home again. Hot shower, relief. In conclusion: traveling alone here is both stressful and rewarding. I hope to do it again soon, but not too soon.

Getting ready for my first Indian wedding on Thursday.

Made it through Diwali alive, if a bit traumatized. This past weekend was full of both love and and hate moments, a mixture of feelings that, I am beginning to realize, pretty much defines my relationship to India.

Diwali, the festival of lights, is the most widely celebrated festival in the country. For us, it meant three whole, glorious days off work. Sophia, Kyle and I started off Friday with our first walk along the ghats. After two months, the banks of the river have finally receded, and the remaining mud has been (mostly) cleared. Being able to take a walk away from the madness of Varanasi streets is wonderful. It felt like we were completely rediscovering the city. Though the ghats have a madness of their own, of course.

We had an animal companion on our walk. Bulan is the dog who lives with the family at our guesthouse, and he has a habit of following us everywhere, even when it gets him into sketchy situations. Street dogs in Varanasi are very territorial, and the ones who live along the various ghats were not happy about Bulan invading their domains. Every time we would approach a ghat, a new pack of maniac dogs would come charging, teeth-bared and barking like mad. By now we are used to attracting a lot of attention, though it is usually from touts and naughty boys, not crazed animals. At one point, near the smaller cremation ghat, a young boy gave me a stick to ward off the unwanted dogs. It did occur to me that this stick had most likely just been used to poke a burning body (it was charred at one end), but soon I was waving it left and right and shouting a feeble “shoo! shoo!” to keep angry dogs from attacking Bulan.

Eventually we decided it was time to concede defeat, so we hired a boat. Kyle picked up Bulan and carried him on, and off home we went. (The morning after this adventure, I woke up to find that Bulan had chewed through one of my flip-flops. Lalu says that in India, the first time a dog eats a shoe, it means he loves the shoe’s owner. And mine was the first! I feel special). Here are Kyle, Bulan, the stick, and me, protecting my pack.

Diwali festivities themselves were both beautiful and loud. We began the evening by decorating the entire cafe and rooftop, where our rooms are, with lights and dozens of candles. We then participated in a puja (prayer ceremony) with the family and a private priest. This involved an elaborate ritual and presentation of offerings to several idols, after which each of us received prasad (food blessed by the gods), had thread tied around our wrists and tilaks placed on our foreheads. I am overwhelmed by Hinduism and don’t pretend to understand much about it, so it’s very far from me to be making more than observations. But I have to say that certain practices make me very uncomfortable… like the fact that women receive the ritual thread on the left wrist (the “dirty” one), while men receive it on the (holy) right. Or that women who are menstruating are prohibited from participating in puja or entering certain temples. Somehow, it makes me feel very adolescent and defiant. Like I want to secretly do a puja while I’m having my period, just because. But who would I be trying to piss off… the gods?

After dinner we set off to a coworker’s house, where we had been invited to celebrate. Walking in the streets during Diwali I can liken only to being in a warzone. Fireworks abound, and there is no designated area in which to set them off. Sparks are liable to fly at you from any direction. Particularly popular is one type of explosive that emits no light, only a huge, deafening sonic boom. They are basically little grenades, and at several points we strayed so close to them that I felt a gush of air rush past me when they went off.

Visiting with our coworker and her mother was very sweet. They had prepared chaat (spicy snacks) and homemade sweets, which the mother fed to us, hand-to-mouth like baby birds. We spent a while on their roof, watching the fireworks spout up from every direction, and lit off a few sparklers in the street. Unfortunately, the evening took a bit of a downward turn from here. First, Lovisa (one of our Swedish friends) tripped on the stairs and managed to rip off one of her toenails. (She is doing fine!). And later on, I witnessed another incident that is too sensitive to recount here. The rest of the weekend was basically spent processing and recovering. I felt very thankful for my intern family.

At dinner last night (the first one prepared by interns!), Jenn pointed out that we were at exactly the half-way point of our stay in Varanasi. It seems appropriate. The mood is a little different, it’s getting colder, work is piling up, and the clearing of the ghats has opened up a whole side of the city we haven’t yet seen much of. It’s now tourist season, too. This means we are seeing new faces at the cafe, meeting various travellers and getting invited out more often. Just when I felt like routine was set. Onward! Part 2!

I often want to write to friends about the people I meet here through work, but find it difficult to put the experience into words without coming across like a World Vision campaign. I start out with the background information. For example: I met this family of three who lives in a concrete room of about 6 x 6 feet. The father is 55, makes $32 a month working as a private priest and occasional bookbinder. He’s taken care of his two young daughters entirely on his own, ever since his wife died of brain fever 7 years ago… I stop about here because it feels like I’m writing a sob story. Do people at home want to hear about this? Does it sound like I’m trying to make them feel guilty? Do they feel like I expect them to respond in a certain way?

I don’t. But it can feel like I’m trying to communicate through a wall of stereotypes. Just as we feel like there are certain reactions we’re supposed to have to stories about poverty, every time I try to narrate my experiences here I become conscious that there are certain ways we’re supposed to talk about it. Suddenly I start sounding a lot like the tele-campaigns, street canvassers, charity drives and countless informative leaflets I’ve been around my whole life. It’s this kind of storytelling that is responsible for the exhaustion I usually feel at the first mention of any sort of “cause” to which I’m meant to be giving my attention. (For some comic relief on this topic, please see this delightfully cynical video, made by folks in Vancouver).

The irritating thing is that I’m not trying to tell these stories for any other purpose than to give friends and family a sense of my day, what I did at work, who I’m interacting with and how I feel about it. And unfortunately that’s impossible to do without drawing attention to the fact that there is a huge disparity in wealth between “us,” at home in North America, and “them.” And that is instantly uncomfortable and instantly dehumanizing, on both ends.

So how to get across that meeting this family was the best part of my week? And not only because it was “humbling,” or made me recognize my privilege or because it somehow validated my reason for being here, though of course at some level that is true. But mostly just because they were lovely! And because they invited Laura and I into their home and told us about their lives and made me feel welcome. And because the girls are cute little muffins. And because I really admire their father. And by the way, their names are Mannu, Shreya, and Gyanendri, and it is completely shocking that it has taken me till this point in the post to mention that.

Do you see what I am saying? Communication: it’s hard! Let’s not get into the biggest irony here, which is that the reason I was visiting this family was, uncomfortably, to take photos of them for a direct mail appeal in Canada. But for a moment can we just marvel at how insanely adorable these two sisters are?

If you want to hear more about them, you could watch this video made by Andrea, the communications intern who was here just before us. I think it is very sensitive and truthful, unlike many campaign videos.

Halloween at the library tomorrow! We are going to carve one, painstakingly acquired pumpkin…

Got back from a week of vacation this morning via overnight train. 5 days in Darjeeling and 3 days in Calcutta. I was travelling with Kyle, who proved a good companion as he is very adept at navigation and haggling with rickshaw drivers. I do not enjoy these things, myself, so it was nice to have him take care of logistics while I just looked around me with my mouth hanging open, as usual.

I loved Darjeeling. It was beautiful, even though it rained most of the time I was there. It was lovely to bundle up in warm clothes and drink hot tea and look at the misty mountains all around. We stayed at a guest house run by the most adorable Tibetan couple. Also visited a number of buddhist monasteries. I have to say, I feel a lot more at ease in buddhist temples than I do at Hindu ones. At one monastery I was invited in to spin a giant Tibetan prayer wheel, and a monk taught me the mantra you are meant to chant for each rotation: Om Mani Padme Hung. We were also allowed to hang around and watch a “red hat ceremony,” which involved a group of monks chanting and circling around a courtyard filled with huge clouds of smoke and incense. It was also lovely to walk. And walk and walk and walk.

Compared to most places in India, Darjeeling is incredibly clean, and there was very little hassling and staring. This meant that it was a bit of a shock to descend from the mountains and arrive in Calcutta. I had the most unwelcome male attention there that I’ve had since I’ve been in India. Constant staring and lewd gestures and kissing noises from men on the street…. blech. I also received a flash groping by a group of about 10 12-year old boys, who basically swarmed us as we were walking down the road. I really hate this aspect of India. But I ended up calling Juli that night and we had a good talk about it.

I didn’t have the greatest time in Calcutta. It is so enormous and busy and overwhelming. And the gap between rich and poor is more startling there than it is in Varanasi, where poverty is almost the norm. You can be walking down the street, where countless people are living under tarps on the sidewalk, then just turn and walk right into a snazzy mall filled with people far richer than you or I, shopping for designer jeans and watches.

I did have one great experience there, though. We visited a big old empty anglican church (there are a lot of huge, semi-empty and beautifully crumbling colonial buildings in Calcutta), and I found an old piano there. I was just admiring it when a middle-aged Indian man came out of nowhere and invited me to play it. Then he pulled out some sheet music and asked me to play so he could sing along in preparation for the next day’s sermon. He also showed us the workings of the old church organ and performed some organ music just for us. He was an incredibly nice and eccentric man. We spent about an hour and a half just chatting with him about music and Calcutta. Now we are email correspondents. I love having experiences like this, just as I feel like I’m sick of India for good and all the hassle it involves.

It is really nice to be back in Varanasi, actually. I missed the other interns and our Swedish friends from upstairs and the family who runs our guesthouse and my little room. Home feels very far away, but it was pleasing to arrive back in this bizarre but cozy little world and discover that this place now feels like home, too.

I took my film camera along and took lots of photos, but the quality of the prints I had done here is shockingly bad. I will wait and take them to a better lab when I am back in Canada, or perhaps try printing some myself if I can access facilities. Nevertheless, a few are interesting.

Back to work.