Meandering Through Mumbai: Part 1

Edit: Pictures to come soon!

Not even one week after our trip to Kaas, we left for Mumbai - the biggest city in India and one of the largest cities in the world. While very few were stoked about the 7am departure time, there was an upside. Unlike previous ventures, our mode of transport would not be a questionably constructed bus or tightly packed vans but the regal accommodations of the Deccan Queen (actually a pretty standard train, but they did serve us breakfast!) Thanks to my incredibly short sighted decision to get only 4 hours of sleep the night before though, I passed out the moment I took my seat, completely missing out on the picturesque landscape that connects the urban behemoths of Pune and Mumbai. Once we arrived in the Mumbai train station (which I later found out was a World Heritage Site - unlike poor Kaas) we were quickly back in our usual vans and whisked off to our hotel, the YWCA (which I never did figure out whether it's affiliated with its more masculine, musical counterpart). Our hotel was surprisingly swanky and located right in the heart of the Fort/Colaba area of the city. As you can probably surmise from the photos, these areas make up what was once "British Mumbai"- with incredible Gothic architecture at every turn and plenty of Western comforts like street lights and hummus.

Before we knew it we were back in the vans and on our way to our first Mumbai attraction, Mani Bhavan, a former headquarters for Gandhi's political work converted into a museum all about the Indian leader. While the museum itself was rather small (though to be fair it is just a house), it had some truly incredible artifacts on display including letters Gandhi sent to FDR and Hitler as well as a perfectly preserved room used by the man himself during his stay there over 80 years ago. It also had an informative but slightly unsettling collection of dioramas chronicling Gandhi's life as seen below.

Once we had had our fill of round glasses and non-violence, as well as a quick lunch, we made our way to the next stop of our grand Mumabi tour - the Bombay High Court (not a typo - they just didn't want to change the name). Essentially the equivalent of a state supreme court in the US, this particular house of law was a relic of the city's British past, a beautiful Gothic castle with more pointed archways and wrought ironwork than you could shake a stick at. The only downside to using this incredible architectural wonder as the state's judicial headquarters was the complete lack of provisioning for electrical and plumbing infrastructure back when the building was completed in the 1870s. Because of this pipes and wires laced most of the hallways, creating a bizarre contrast with not just the brownstone but with the throngs of lawyers and judges who all sported the same black robes circa 1845. I'd like to say that the three hours we spent at the High Court was nothing but non-stop, pulse-pounding legal drama, Law & Order style, but unfortunately t'was not so. Instead we were shuffled through a series of court rooms, each with a trial already well underway, and while everything was in English, the complete lack of background on any of the cases made it very difficult to get swept up in the judicial proceedings. That's not to say there wern't other highlights since we did have an opportunity towards the end of our stay to speak with a female justice of the court who spoke candidly about the challenges of corruption and being a woman in a typically male-dominated field.

Once back at the hotel we had some time to kill before dinner so a few of us decided to take a stab at finding the Gateway of India (sort of like the Arc de Triomph only more British and ever so slightly less pompous) which was supposedly only a short five minute walk from the YWCA. While the walk was short as promised, the Mumbai monsoon season (which in theory had ended over two weeks earlier) made sure the jaunt was not without excitement. The rain speckled picture below simply doesn't do the weather justice; by the time we reached the Gateway it felt like the Hindu gods were bailing out the Indian ocean on each of our heads. Fortunately I made it back to the hotel with my clothes only half drenched thanks to my rain jacket, but even that hadn't completely saved me.

The next morning was spent primarily in a class room, listening first to a lecture on the plight of the former mill workers of Mumbai (the city used to be a major textile hub, with literally hundreds of mills, but redevelopment has converted many of the old mills into malls and other modern fare) and then to a lecture on slums. Though the first lecture was by no means uninteresting, I found the second the most compelling since the speaker (a young Swiss guy who's lived and worked all over the world) spent much of the time just breaking down what a "slum" really is. In his view, the term had grown to become damagingly broad and negative, serving as an unfair catchall for a variety of living situations that varied wildly in quality and character. He backed up his view point by showing photographic mash ups of so-called "slums" in India and average neighborhoods in Tokyo, but didn't tell us until after we had agreed that the picture shown seemed like a perfectly respectable place to live. While conventional wisdom suggests that slums must be terrible places to live and the people who inhabit them all miserable, our speaker argued that this was not the case, in fact many people lived quite well in slums and had no interest in being transplanted somewhere else. Rather they simply desired the same access to public good and services, like transportation and sanitation facilities, that are available to other urbanites. I can't speak for my fellow Alliancees, but the lecture really altered my perspective on slums and their residents, suddenly I wasn't quite sure how I felt about government redevelopment and removal projects.

All of this was particularly relevant and fascinating since later that afternoon we were taken to Dharavi, a mega-slum in Mumbai, made famous to Americans in Slumdog Millionaire (that's where the kids are from at the beginning) and also popularly, if incorrectly, referred to as the biggest slum in Asia (according to Wikipedia there are 4 bigger ones in Mumbai alone). Without question, our all too brief visit to Dharavi was my favorite part of my Mumbai experience. In keeping with the morning's lecture, the "slums" were actually quite normal, with regular if somewhat ramshackle shops lining major streets populated by decidedly non-destitute looking people. That's not to say we didn't come across some truly brutal living conditions, particularly the kiln-keepers. These residents/workers (mostly female from what I could tell) burned just about anything they could get their hands on (largely discarded clothes and fabrics) to heat the kilns used for Dharavi's bustling pottery industry. These kilns poured out smoke in incredible quantities, many of us had trouble breathing during just the 5-10 minutes we passed by them, leaving us to only wonder about the undoubtedly charred state of the workers' lungs. After touring the pottery district, we were taken to the "recycling district," an area where goods from all over the city are brought to be sorted, chopped up, melted down, and generally remade into a usable resource again. Unfortunately while the area certainly embodies the principles of eco-friendliness, the working conditions were once again terrifying. Men worked with huge vats of boiling plastic without so much as a long sleeve shirt on (see below) while others took about as much precaution using a mechanized dicing machine as they would using a food processor. Its hard to imagine many days go by without some sort of work place injury, but since all of this activity is part of Mumbai's "informal economy" the prospect for regulation or workplace safety standards is pretty much nil.

At this point one could very reasonably wonder why I enjoyed this part of Mumbai more than any other given the numerous incidences of distressing living conditions. While I would have much rather seen the residents of Dharavi not suffering or putting their lives in danger simply because of where they live, I found everything else about the area absolutely incredible. Despite it's negative casting as a "slum," Dharavi contained some of the hardest working and upbeat people I've seen in India. Someone else in our group pointed out later that we hadn't come across a single beggar while in Dharavi, a fact that points to how industrious and proud the people of this community are. When we left Dharavi (a little earlier than we would have liked thanks to the return of the Mumbai monsoon) I couldn't help but with we could have spent a whole week just walking around there - talking to the people, finding out what their lives are like, what they like about Dharavi and what they hate. More so than any other part of our trip to Mumbai, our visit to Dharavi seemed like a cultural experience that we simply had to have - an up close look at a part of India that we're rarely exposed to going to and from classes every day. I only wish we had been able to look a little longer and a little closer.

The Incredible Kolors of Kaas

In what will hopefully be a return to the undoubtedly more popular Chapters that include less words and more pictures, this post focuses entirely on two incredible excursions I took without having to leave the state of Maharashtra (the same state Pune is in).

The first came on Sunday, October 9th when the Alliance organized (but sadly did not fund) a trip to the Kaas Plateau of Flowers. Only about a three hour bus ride from Pune, Kaas looks like somewhere out of a movie: a vast stretch of completely flat land covered by an unending carpet of wild flowers and overlooking a massive, lake-filled valley. All the flowers bloom naturally during and just after the heavy rains of the monsoon season, with the type, quantity and pattern of flowers changing daily and sometimes by the hour because of the short lifespan of the flowers and the huge diversity of seeds.

Just outside Kaas (the pictures look a lot cooler right next to each other)

Our guide informed us that there are actually several varieties of flowers that have yet to be found anywhere in the world other than Kaas, including one affectionately called the "Donald Duck" flower (though there were a few flowers that weren't so rare, like the lantana seen in the picture below). The variety of rare and endangered species present in this area, as well as its overwhelming natural beauty and popularity as a tourist destination, have actually drawn the attention of UNESCO - so hopefully in a few years I'll be able to brag not just about seeing an incredible plateau of flowers, but checking another World Heritage site off my list. In all seriousness though, our guide informed us that the World Heritage designation will actually be critical for the area in the years to come, as the ever increasing foot traffic and flower-picking of tourists has started to threaten the delicate wild life and ecosystem.

Lantana- found in the fragile hills of India and in my front yard

The hard to find but fun to say "Donald Duck" plant

Beautiful swaths of wild yellow flowers, not to be confused with a particularly robust invasion of dandelions.

Most of our time on the Plateau was spent frolicking among the flowers (read: being strongly discouraged from leaving the path) but before we left we did get to enjoy a nice lakeside picnic (Indian-style of course: the menu included potato bajhi, giant chipatis and shira, a sweet made of a rice-like grain, sugar, cardamom and plenty of ghee - all served on plates made out of banana leaves!). After eating our fill of the picnic food (including far too much shira in my case) a bunch of us waded just far enough into the water to tickle our ankles, though not without serious contemplation of jumping in fully clothed and taking a quick lap around the lake. While the prospect of a soaking wet three hour bus ride ultimately dissuaded anyone from taking the plunge, few could be too disappointed as we left the Plateau of Flowers, having got to enjoy all the wonderful sights you can see below!

Seeing as you can never have too many vista shots, here are a couple looking at the hill-side and lake-side of Kaas plateau

It's the magic of Kass that makes it seem like you can actually see the flowers blowing in the wind in these pictures. Picture magic is critical for World Heritage status.

Kaas even repped Amherst colors, clearly demonstrating that Mother Nature is pulling for the Lord Jeffs.

The caretakers of Kaas actually dig these square plots so the little purple guys aren't completely overwhelmed by their more prolific yellow and white companions.

We actually saw some pictures where Kaas had about ten times as many flowers. Crazy.

Not sure if it's rare but the "lantern plant" was definitely a highlight

Even the lily pads were beautiful!

Just a quick pond stop.

On our way down to the picnic. Pretty sure views don't get much better than this.

We weren't the only ones who came down for a little lakeside R&R, though we were the only ones that had numerous requests for pictures.

Just to prove that I didn't just take all these pictures from someone else. Thanks for viewing!

The Oldest Profession

After yet another all-too-lengthy hiatus, The Chapters are back in business. In the coming days expect a host of new posts (and maybe some ghosts?) detailing several of the reasons for the delay (including trips to a gorgeous wild-flower plateau and the city formerly known as Bombay). However those chapters will have to wait as they simply won't be done justice without photographic accompaniment.

In the meantime, I thought I'd rattle off a post about the reason I've been particularly busy this past week, and that's due to my Directed Research project. First a little background: as part of the academic component of the Contemporary India program, every student here is required to complete an internship or a directed research project (or, brand new to this semester, a documentary, but for simplicity's sake we'll focus on the first two). In either case, each student is paired with a company or organization that in one way or another aligns with some part of the short statement of interest we all wrote many months ago when we were applying. For the internship people (about three quarters of the students) their purpose is fairly straight-forward: do whatever work/project/manual labor their organization instructs them to do (just kidding about that last one-I hope). Meanwhile, for the directed research people, the focus is decidedly more scholarly. While we're still paired with an organization that reflects our research interests, we're also given a short research "menu" that lists the two topics that we're allowed to do research on (I didn't ask whether we could craft our own option since both of my topics were quite compelling, but I'm sure there's some flexibility there) . Once a topic is selected, a fairly lengthy (10-12 pages, 1.5 spaced!) Research Proposal is drafted basically setting the foundation of the project with a review of relevant literature, hypothesis formation and methodology planning. After that you do some actual research for five weeks and then tie it all together in an even longer paper (15-18 pages!).

*Side-note: The internship also have to write a paper of some sort but we all know that the directed research people are the real scholars here. Who needs work experience when you have the scientific process??

Now, returning to my project specifically, I noted above how the time when we wrote our statements of interest was long, long ago. As such, I could not for the life of me remember what I had written about other than that I had said something about health and might have mentioned alternative medical practices as a possible area of interest. With that in my mind, I'm sure you have no trouble imagining my surprise when I found out that I would be paired with an organization known as Saheli, a female sex workers' collective. Turns out I had also mentioned STD prevention as a possible area of interest which naturally suggested my desire to work in the red-light district of Pune. All kidding aside though, despite my surprise I was actually really excited to find out about my placement since I knew it would be just another eye-opening cultural experience; not quite like re-learning to eat with my hands or remembering to ride my bike on the left side of the road but in the same ball-park of new experiences provided by India.

Since learning about my topic about two and a half weeks ago, I've already visited Saheli three times and have only positive things to say about my experience thus far. While they're located just off one of the biggest and craziest shopping streets in all of Pune (Laxmi Road), the actual facility is quite non-descript, consisting of two-stories tucked away down a narrow alley. The first floor is actually a 24-hr nursery for the children of the workers, complete with a kitchen, play room and cubby room (and beautifully decorated for the impending Diwali holiday). This nursery provides an invaluable service to many of the women who would otherwise be forced to keep their children in the brothel, or in the case of a less understanding brothel-keeper, let them roam the streets on their own. Up two flights of stairs is the main office, consisting of the director's room (Tejaswi), the accounting room (where Manu and Sarika work) and a general work room (most everyone else, including myself and Karunadeep). None of the rooms are particularly big nor the power particularly reliable, but in my three trips I've yet to encounter someone who wasn't noticeably happy and upbeat the whole time I was there.

Tejaswi (the director) is a women in her early 40s who radiates authority without being (too) intimidating. She's been with the program since the it began as a short-term project of a major NGO in 1991. When the NGO ran out of funding and looked to close up shop around 1997, she and other's at the organization realized that their work with these women could never really be done and so remade themselves into a sex worker's collective, an organization for sex workers and run by sex workers, and thus Saheli (which means female friend in Hindi was born). I talked with her for quite a while on my first visit just going over what we expected out of each other, what she thought about my topic and just general information about the role Saheli plays in these women's lives. I came away thoroughly impressed by the determination to help these women lead independent, healthy life styles and the dedication to work long days and in often difficult circumstances to do so. Manu runs the books at Saheli, keeping track of all the paper work that needs to regularly submitted to their main source of funding, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. She also exudes energy and passion for her work, and was quick to offer me any help she could provide. Sarika is the program manager at Saheli, a role that everyone in the office agreed was by far the most taxing. The program manager is tasked with making sure all the various services provided by Saheli (focus group meetings, free condom distribution, information sessions, the nursery) run without a hitch. Despite this incredible work load, Sarika is always my go-to source for information for my project, never hesitating to take a moment away from whatever's she doing to answer my questions. Karunadeep, usually the only other guy at the office besides me, is the general do-everything worker that every organization needs, doing everything from data-entry to tea-making (a very crucial role when you're talking about India) and of course helping me learn everyone's names. Karunadeep probably has the biggest smile of anyone in the office, and while we can't always communicate verbally because of language barriers, somehow he always manages to understand what I'm trying to say.

I realized I never actually mentioned what topic of research I actually ended up choosing for my project, clearly a fairly important piece of information for those of you still with me. My project will look to understand why many of these women are reluctant to seek STD testing and treatment despite showing symptoms and having positive support institutions like Saheli and government health clinics. Much of this past week was spent researching the answer to this question, and while the women will ultimately provide the final say, a few key factors have emerged. The most prominent based on the literature seems to be a fear of facing stigmatization, discrimination and rejection my peers and loved ones if a test were to come back positive. Particularly in regards to HIV, women are deeply concerned that they'll be completely ostracized both from their families and their line of work if a positive test were to become public knowledge. Sarika also suggested that a lack of knowledge about what happens a positive test has led many women to view a positive test result as a sort of "death sentence," and that they'd just rather not know than live with that sort of fate hanging over them. I'm also hoping to find out whether things like alcoholism, restrictive brothel keeper policies (their bosses not letting them seek testing/treatment) or some other factors might play a role. My research will consist primarily of interviewing the women directly, as well as other members of their social network, like their "partners" (non-paying lovers), peer counselors from Saheli, their brothel keepers and health workers. Hopefully by talking to all these people I'll be able to get a better handle on why these women won't do what's ultimately in the best interest for both them and the community at large.

This post has already become much longer than I envisioned but I hope that the change of pace has been a welcome one to most people. I'll try to add some pictures of the organization when I can but in the meantime look forward to the upcoming travel-related posts and of course the eventual return of "A Turn to the Tummy." I promise I'm just collecting photos of many different types of food (and of course subsequently sampling them), but expect to see the fruits of this labor soon! Once again sorry for the delay, now that we're entering the Internship/DR part of the program some of our classes are ending so blog posts should be occurring with more frequency. But for now its time for my host parent's massive concert at their house (coverage by the Chapters to follow of course) and then off to Madrid to see a Miss Hickey! Namaskar!

Taking the "Tribal Village" out of "Tribal Village Visit"

Two weekends ago we left the barely controlled chaos of Pune behind for one of the hallmark components of the Contemporary India program, the "tribal village" visit. I say "tribal village" because a good portion of us never actually got to see much of a tribal village at all. However, that's not to suggest that I felt the trip was a waste or even disappointing, because of the quality of what we got to experience instead. While we weren't able to do much on the day we left for the village, on account of the leisurely 7 hour van ride, the next day had no such downtime.

Immediately following breakfast, the 12 of us in the Public Health course were whisked away to the nearby Primary Health Center. A PHC is essentially the first significant line of defense in rural healthcare in India, ideally serving a population of no more than 30,000 but unfortunately ideals rarely find a foothold in reality. This particular center wasn't too overstretched though, serving a community of between 35,000-38,000, albeit with chronic understaffing in some of the lower level positions. Centers are designed to provide substantial preventative care, like vaccines and ante-/post-natal services, but can also treat relatively minor illnesses like diarrhea and vomiting. Anything more serious merits referral to a Community Health Center, a small, rural hospital and the next "rung" on the healthcare ladder, or in the most dire of circumstances, patients can be sent directly to a major urban hospital for advanced treatment.

Returning to our PHC though, upon taking a tour of the small campus (which contained both medical facilities and residential spacing for the staff), we discovered the first remarkable fact about the center, as well as the first disappointment. Aside from a five rupee (~ 12 cents) fee charged for the initial check-up, all of the services offered at the facility are provided at no cost to anyone who walks through the door. Sadly, even this theoretically "nominal" charge represents a substantial burden for a significant portion of the rural community. Part of the reason for this is the not inconsequential matter of actually getting to the center from one's village. In some cases the villages can be as much as a dozen miles off, which doesn't sound like much until you consider that almost no one in these areas has a car and a scooter's not exactly ideal transport for a pregnant woman or someone with a broken leg. The government does subsidize private car owners in the area, but even then the patient is expected to come up with 20 rupees on their own. Such a sum is substantial in and of itself in these areas, but combined with a lost day's wages (men almost always accompany their wives to the center), the financial burden can prevent a family from making the trek to the center.

Main medical facility- disregard really sad-looking tree

The unintelligible Hindi word you see many times

in the right column basically means "free"

Congratulations on your first Hindi lesson!

Less disheartening was the recently renovated pre-natal room, an immaculate room for housing women in the last week of pregnancy. Whereas the other rooms around the campus had stone walls and ceilings, this room had bright, white tiles and freshly painted walls, along with a tv and private bathroom. All of this (and the 400 rupees a day that a woman gets while she stays in the room) is part of the massive push by the government to reduce maternal mortality in India. While infant mortality has declined substantially here over the past few decades, maternal mortality has remained stubbornly high. Fortunately, efforts like these should go a long way towards turning that trend around.

Swanky pre-delivery ward.

My potential competition in keeping the values of modern

medicine alive and well. Or just a really nice guy.

The best part of the visit was talking to the doctors though, since the two we got to meet were actually trained in two different types of medicine. While one had been trained in modern (or allopathic) medicine, the other had gone to school for just as long to learn Ayurvedic medicine. This type of medicine has long been practiced in India and attempts to maintain harmony between mind, body and soul. As someone who has a vested interest in preserving faith in modern medicine (got pay back those med-school loans somehow), I'd had a (mostly healthy) skepticism of this alternative branch of medicine. My fears were largely unfounded though, as the Indian government seems to think along the same lines. In addition to paying them less than half the salary of their allopathic-trained counterparts, the government actually makes it a point to train any Ayurvedic doctors in their employ in the essentials of modern medicine. What these policies amounted to, in my mind anyhow, was an institutionalized marginalization of Ayurvedic medicine. While the doctors didn't quite put it these terms, they did admit that Ayurvedic treatments were mostly confined to gastrointestinal problems, and that in almost all other circumstances allopathic treatments were the go-to cure. The doctors also shared the encouraging news that despite being trained in different medical fields, conflicts over diagnoses and treatments almost never emerged. With my future career in medicine mercifully unthreatened by the encroaching tendrils of Ayurveda, we left the PHC for a quick lunch and the next stop on our "tribal village" visit.

This stop brought us to the farms of BAIF, an NGO that works to develop sustainable agriculture in rural India and also our fine hosts for both sleeping and eating. While I could understand the lack of enthusiasm among some of my peers at seeing the wonderful world of rice growing experiments, my combined passion for the outdoors, environmentalism and the scientific process made sure I didn't share in their doldrums. The key to the whole operation was a revolutionary substance affectionally known around these parts as "wormy compost," an environmentally friendly mixture of nutritious, decaying organic matter and those world-class aerators known as earthworms (ok maybe not so revolutionary but you can't not love the name).

The scientific process at work!

(I can feel your excitement from here).

Less scientific but still really awesome vista.

These were everywhere.

Wormy compost! (More unfettered enthusiasm from my readers I'm sure)

After perusing the experimental fields where all the tests are done, we got to see one of the finished products, though in this case the farm specialized in the exciting crops of mangos, cashews and flowers rather than the humble rice plant. As much as I love crop gazing, I was definitely part of the consensus that the best part about our visit to the farm was our brief exchange with a slightly elderly tribal woman who tended the crops. While our conversation took place through a translator and lasted only about ten minutes or so, the rush of learning about a life so far removed from any you can ever hope to find in the U.S. left everyone on a study abroad high. We learned that since BAIF had gotten the farm going (they handle the start-up costs and related procedures, then turn over the operation to the community) she and her community have experienced a much higher quality of life. Even as we probed her about any ways in which the government or BAIF could do more to make her life better, she expressed her contentedness, stating that she would like to have better access to veterinary services and technology but that she enjoyed her life as is. We also found out that she's an active member in the political process (she says she votes in elections) and that her greatest aspiration is for her children to receive a quality education so they can make better lives for themselves in the future - even if it means leaving the rural area they call home. After a few minutes of excited and hurried questioning, we reluctantly made our way back to the vans since we were already in violation of some silly thing known as "the schedule." This largely needless and arbitrary document did provide for us a quick stop to see a gorgeous waterfall from afar (see picture for visual confirmation) which made up just a tad the disappointment we felt at leaving the tribal woman.

The sadly fruitless mango tree... ... and its equally bare counterpart the cashew tree

Our wonderful host and two other villagers we didn't get a chance to converse with.

Stunning column of rapidly falling water or unparalleled insights into a different culture? I leave these complex moral decisions up to the all-knowing schedule.

The next day we had only a few hours to take advantage of before we had to start the dreaded process known as "the drive home" but fortunately we were able to capitalize on these too. It was during these hours that many of us got our one and only "tribal village" experience, though even then it was less about the village and more about seeing a couple of the local artists that lived there. This particular tribe, known as the Warli, actually lend their name to a particular painting style that I've had the pleasure of learning during my time in Pune. Sadly my amateur skills were exposed as the barely-above-stick-figure level artistry that they are in the face of the incredible paintings done by the local painter we met with. So impressive were his skills, that a couple years back, when the program came to him for the first time, the students cleaned out his entire stock of paintings, leading him to simply take down their requests for a later shipment to Pune. There was no such shortage this time however, although some people (including your humble narrator) took down orders rather than buy on site for fear of ruining the products in an attempt to bring them home. As you can see from the pictures below, the art style isn't actually too far removed from stick figures, albeit much more impressive and intricately drawn stick figures. In addition to the painter, we also got to meet a family of paper mache artists, with the head woman of the household actually showing us the entire process of crafting a paper mache turtle. She naturally made it look far easier than it could ever possibly be, something I learned afterwards could be attributed to the fact that she's been at this almost every day for the last 18 years (not turtle-making specifically but many much more intricate projects as well). Sadly, like nearly every part of the trip, our stay with the Warlis quickly came to an end, and before we knew it we had scarfed down lunch and were back on the road to Pune.

The artist steps up to her canvas

(or wad of paper in this case).

An as yet unidentifiable blob of mushy paper and glue.

And the finished product! (Aw, isn't he a cutie!)

Ganesh and his less godly counterparts were also in the artist's repertoire.

We had quite the fan club.

Stick figures have never looked so classy!

While I'm sure this post is already way too long (I had to compensate for my two and a half week hiatus somehow!) I can't leave the tribal village behind without first discussing the incomparable beauty of our surroundings while we were there. Because of the nature of the area, we spent a fair amount of time in the vans being shuttled place to place, but this was just fine with me since we were exposed to so many breathtaking vistas comprised of deep, verdant valleys and smooth, undulating hills that I actually got a little excited every time we rounded a blind turn just out of anticipation at what could be waiting just around the bend. I think I must have told just about everyone who would listen that there was nothing I would rather do than just hop out of the car and start walking, not to any one point in particular, but just walk until the sun set and my eyes could no longer take in the incredible landscapes all around us. With that romantic, tree-hugging section out of the way, I must thank all of you grizzled readers once again for sticking with me once again for a far, far too lengthy post. Hopefully the pretty pictures partially compensate for your undoubtedly priceless time!

Can't blame a guy for getting a little sentimental over views like these right?

Right?

Ganpati Bappa...Morya!!

This past Sunday I had the pleasure to not only attend but participate in the final and main event of the Ganpati Festival here in Pune. The Ganpati Festival is a ten-day celebration of the Hindu god Ganesh, who's domains include wisdom and general prosperity! First a little background on the festival itself though. In our first few days in Pune, leading up to festival, we saw dozens of temporary platforms under construction around the city, each preparing to house its own Ganesh idol. Once the festival began, the platforms came to life, with vast differences in how each community-sponsored platform decided to worship their Ganesh. While many were ornate, peaceful tributes to the elephant-headed god there were also some very...creative displays. These included a few that apparently imagined Ganesha as quite the raver, with bumping music and flashing lights , one with a Ganesh made entirely out of cork and a perplexing platform that had a live-action performance on stage that involved some sort of exchange between Adolf Hitler and Gandhi. While we only saw a few of these platforms in our area of Pune, there were apparently several hundred of these displays scattered across the city, each waiting to be immersed in the local river following the procession.

The procession itself gave one the impression of a complex crossover between New Year's, the Macy's Day parade and what I can only imagine Woodstock would have been like if there had been more Indians and less "free love." The marchers wind down a major thoroughfare in Pune known as Laxmi Road, known for its shopping and the strange phenomenon that prompts Westerners to pay four times the actual price of a good and still think they got a good deal. On procession day though, the pirates of Pune close up shop and the street floods with people, to the point that we had to move in a twenty-person long conga line to make any progress up or down the street. While the original plan had been to camp out on the second floor of a restaurant owned by the mother of one of our Indian buddies, by the time we arrived the place had become so jam packed with patrons that only two members of our group could go up at a time, and still might not be able to see. This left the rest of us to settle for street level viewing, which turned out to be so bad thanks to the blessedly poor prevalence of the tall gene among Indians.

As the pictures hopefully demonstrate, the part of the parade that we got a see consisted predominantly of musicians, specifically drummers, and even more specifically drummers who like to play load, which, to be fair, basically goes without saying. The drummer bands were essentially split into three parts, the biggest section being bass drummers who had massive drums strapped around their stomach (they occasionally swung these around while playing and I can only imagine how they avoided severe whip lash each and every time). The second smaller section consisted of what were basically snare drummers, with one lead performer (resident baller of the group) playing a different rhythm every other 4 counts and the rest providing a echo. Finally there were one or two "performers" whose instructions I can only hazard to guess were "Here are some hammers-now continue to wail on this circular piece of metal as hard as humanly possible until otherwise notified." Needless to say this was not an event for the faint of eardrums. Occasionally the bands were accompanied by flag bearers carrying tall poles and moving in time with the drumming. I found these guys particularly exciting because half the time I could only see the flags and not the bearers, which gave me the distinct impression of watching a medieval army march of some kind.

After a little while of just standing on the sidewalk watching the parade go by, we realized that the pace of the marchers had gotten progressively slower until finally the parade had basically come to a complete halt. No one seemed perturbed by this, and the drummers kept on drumming, but none of us could figure out why everything had stopped. Then another Alliance student realized that a large number of former spectators were now participants and dancing in the middle of the parade with the drummers. Seeing as absolutely no one had stepped in to stop them, we soon determined that this was just another part of the Ganpati experience, and after clearing it with an Indian buddy we decided to become a part of it! First only a few of us, but then everyone, piled over the barriers separating sidewalk from street and joined in the revelry taking place in the middle of the parade. Fortunately, the Indians already getting their street dancing on were happy to have us and eagerly invited us to dance with them. Being young, impressionable Americans looking to have a good time we were only too happy to oblige. The drummers were spectacular and really kept the excitement level up despite the parade remaining at a standstill. Eventually people started getting hoisted on to other peoples' shoulders as part of the general ecstasy/madness, and after a failed attempt at getting on my friend Taylor's shoulders (though the reverse worked fine as the pictures attest) an eager middle-aged Indian man stepped in to provide a helping hand, or in this case set of shoulders. I'll admit to being a little skeptical of getting on the shoulder's of a man I had never met, let alone speak English to, but with a more than helpful boost from those around me, next thing I knew there I was above the crowd. While terrifying is probably the first word that comes to mind on reflection of my time up there, it was also a ton of fun and hugely exhilerating- definitely recommened for the next time you find yourself in a parade in a foreign land with access to a willing pair of unknown shoulders.

While many of us would have been way more than satisfied with the procession after our impromptu dance party, our Indian buddies insisted that there was one more element that we just couldn't miss. If you've skipped ahead to the pictures than you might have already guessed what this "element" entailed- namely, a lot of red powder known as gulal. This lovely substance has the awesome property of sticking to clothes and skin incredibly easily and then being almost impossible to wipe off without just spreading it even more (sort of like a real life, though less painful, version of the multiplying treasure in Bellatrix's vault). Coming back to my preview from the last post, this is where I got the day-long nickname of Red Beard, for fairly apparent reasons (The nickname "Wow, you looked like you mauled a deer" also had a lot of play). While I initially avoided the allegedly heavily-staining substance (which turned out to be totally false, washed right out!) one of the kind powder throwers noticed my reluctance and naturally sent a huge clump of the stuff soaring over the crowd and right into my face. At that point resistance was clearly futile, so I joined in with the rest and began hurling the stuff wantonly in the general direction of my fellow Americans. After we had all gotten our fill (covering?) of the gulal, we made our way off of Laxmi Road, tired and wide-eyed but deeply, deeply satisfied. While I'm disappointed I'll miss the next major celebration in Pune, Diwali (which the office tells me is basically Indian's version of Halloween), I'm confident that the Ganpati procession is a memory I'll take with me for the rest of my life and one of the major highlights of my trip-- and I haven't even been here one month yet! In the interest of time (as well as lack of creativity) I'm leaving the pictures without captions for right now, but hopefully they give at least a small sense of the chaos, beauty and sheer ecstasy of the Ganesh procession. Ganpati Bappa... Morya!!