Malfunktioning Traveler

Gay Pride March, Delhi

2010-11-30T09:58:00.000-08:00

Hundreds, if not a couple thousand as predicted, gathered in downtown Delhi near Connaught Place to march for...pride! So refreshing to see the outpouring from the expected and not-so-expected sectors of an overwhelmingly conservative society. The march went on without a hitch, and people gathered on either side to watch the spectacle. I am humbled by the courage of those brave enough to be open and out in India, a country that can at times seem mind-numbingly rigid.

India Employment Visa and the FRRO

2010-11-01T01:36:00.000-07:00

I have been traveling back and forth between India and the US since 2003 on a Tourist Visa, but the process(es) surrounding an employment visa are much more complicated. Hope this helps some of you.

Step 1: Obtaining a Visa from the Indian Embassy

Indian Consulates/Embassies do not process visas themselves - they outsource the process to a company called Travisa. Don't deal with the the Embassy at all, go to this website for a list of things you will need for an application: Travisa

There you will find details for all of the following needed articles:

Passport valid up to 6 months with at least 2 empty pages
India Visa Application Form (download from the website)
2 recent passport photos (2" x 2")
Proof of residential address in the US (official letter or copy of DL)
Copy of Birth Certificate
Appointment Letter (company should provide this)
Contract (company should provide this)
Resume
Company/Organization Registration with Indian govt.
Tax Liability Letter (company should provide this)
Justification Letter (company should provide this)

Either send this all in the mail directly to Travisa, or go in person to one of their offices.

Step 2: Registering with the FRRO (done on arrival)

You must register and get FRRO approval if your Employment Visa is valid for more than 180 days (no matter how long your stay may be). If you do not get this, you will not be able to leave the country (you will have to obtain an exit visa). You must register within 14 days of arrival or you will be fined Rs.1,300/-. If you are getting paid and need to set up a bank account in India, you will need an FRRO form regardless of your length of stay. The items needed for this document can be found here: FRRO

There you will find that you need the following:

Application form (found on the website or at the office - you will need 3 copies and you must print them out on green paper!)
Photocopy of your passport and visa
4 passport photographs (note: bring your own glue to attach them, the office will probably be out and you will have to leave to buy a glue stick and lose your place in the line)
Details of residence in India (note: this has to be official, and if it is a lease you will need a copy of your landlord's photo id with a signature to corroborate the signature on the lease)
HIV test from WHO recognized organization if you are staying longer than 1 year (ages 15-60)
Terms and conditions of appointments and copies of contracts and agreements (originals and copies)
Undertaking from the concerned Indian company (template provided, you will need original with a stamp and signature on company letterhead)

If you are setting up a bank account, ICIC and ING have the lowest fares in terms of transferring money from Indian to US accounts. I hope this helps someone out there have an easier time than I did, get your company to help you!

Gandhi's Birthday and the "Beautification Plan"

2010-10-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

Uncrowded streets make way for the 2010 Commonwealth Games

Delhi welcomed me back on a warm, balmy October 2nd, the day of Gandhi's birthday. I left my friend's apartment in good spirits, with parrots, crows, kites and pigeons adding to the cacophony of fruit vendors and rickshaws. We grabbed some eggs in the A Block market of Defense Colony, gently reminding me that I can enjoy the comforts of a good cappuccino with scrambled eggs and potatoes here on the other side of the planet. The culture shock was abated for the moment, and we left the market only to glide effortlessly through the city where my friend would drop me off at Gandhi's place of samadhi (where his body was displayed to the masses and immolated). Was this Delhi??? With a full belly of Western food, absolutely not one beggar or hovel beneath the new massive Delhi Metro platforms that curve throughout the city, and no traffic, I figured I must still be on the plane, snoring away in Melatonin-induced slumbers. Where were the people? Where was the traffic? Where were the poor?

People gather at the place where Gandhi was laid for public viewing and cremation

The most obvious answer to the question of traffic is that it was Gandhi's birthday, a national holiday emptying the streets of their usual gridlock as most shops and businesses were closed. Another possible answer of is that the Commonwealth Games begin today, where athletes from around the world will compete for a week after four years of preparation and implementation of the "Beautification Plan" that has disrupted the lives of most Delhi residents in one way or another. I have to admit that the city looked clean, the potted plants lining the center divides more appealing than slums with women and small children selling cigarettes and weaving through traffic, and the metro is impressive - it beats the BART by a long mile. But people don't just evaporate, all the fragile lives hanging in perilous balance between two screaming and choked lanes of insane traffic, and well-named plans often have sinister faces: especially for sporting events in developing countries. This smacked of Indira Gandhi's slum removal in the late seventies (here) so I decided to poke around.

Delhi inhabitants gather for Gandhi's cremation on January 31, 1948.

On reading a little about it, the beautification project can be seen as an incredible boon to the city and national pride, moving it out of sludge-swamped poverty (here) or as a simple mockery (here) and slap in the face to those who have run homeless programs on minimal budgets for years (here). I put forth the argument that the Delhi Metro cut down traffic and it's construction provided many with jobs (now them you do see, everywhere), but my friend quickly told me that in 2 weeks there will be about 100,000 migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar without jobs and crime will definitely be a problem. He told me there is a mass removal plan in place already once the games are over, so I'll keep you posted on that situation. In any case, I'll let you decide for yourself what to make of the new New Delhi and its Commonwealth Games (Indians love to speculate and argue from all angles, proceed at your own peril!) but as our car zipped effortlessly past the World Health Organization (WHO) headquarters I saw them...the dispossessed and downtrodden, all shacked up as they always have been but shoved out of view a block off the expressway in an appropriately ironic locale.

With all these thoughts of beautification on my mind, I approached the place of Gandhi's final rest, wondering if I would have to battle hordes there to pay their dues to the "Father of the Nation." Gandhi is a contentious figure to this day in India (as I said, Indians love to argue) but I was still surprised by the tiny stream of mostly peasant looking pilgrims coming to pay their respects. I entered the area along a heavily guarded street with gun-toting police (the games have led to an increase in security) grabbed a handful of marigolds and laid them on the stone that held his tiny body in 1948. I then retraced my steps and made my way to the National Gandhi Museum to view the relics of this modern-day saint - from his wooden sandals to the blood-stained dhoti he wore when he was shot by a Hindu fundamentalist. Then I reentered the empty streets, filled with armed guards and not traffic, potted plants and not beggars, and marveled at the complexity of history, this place, and its unending approaches to its unending problems. Back in Delhi and summarily confused.

An appropriately dilapidated symbol for the nation's investment in Gandhi's ideas today; across the street from the Gandhi National Museum lined with armed guards. Notice the coal stack to the left of the frame.

La Masa Crítica, Buenos Aires

2010-05-14T16:26:00.000-07:00

Critical Mass starts at 4pm at the Obelisk the first Sunday of every month. It's the most fun you could possibly have on a Sunday afternoon, come join the cause!

Good Times in Buenos Aires

2010-04-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

Botanical Gardens off Plaza Italia (Subte D Line). A beautiful park in the middle of the city - one of many - with small glass and iron green houses, sectioned off seed depositories and arboretums, turn of the century brick government park buildings, and well-labeled flora in all directions.

San Telmo Sunday Market. The antique stores along Defensa are really fun to dig through, and there are hundreds of people crammed along the cobblestone streets between the gorgeous restored buildings for a good 10-15 blocks. Everything from upscale stores, modern boutiques, street vendors, and just plain fun antiquing, flea market style. Touristy but great, make sure you duck into the covered market off the main street and get a spinach ricotta crepe.

Parks. Go to any park in the city after 5pm and bring Mate. Enough said.

Proa. Beautiful contemporary art museum in La Boca. The shows are interesting and the architecture alone is worth going. Nice rooftop bar overlooking the river, and a great artist library that can suck you in for hours.

Malba. Interesting collection, great Wilfredo Lam and Andy Warhol shows while I was there.

878 (Ocho Siete Ocho) whiskey bar. Although 878 is known for it's near 100 types of different whiskey, the ambiance of the place was by far our favorite. There is the red-lit bar, exposed brick walls on all sides, leather couch seating lounge off to the side, and tables for parties looking to partake in the delicious looking food. Drinks are really good and go for about US$5. The only problem is that there is no dance floor to accompany the continual great tunes that they play.

Club Social, San Telmo. Great drinks, awesome friendly staff, and really good sushi and dinners.

Post Bar. Run of the mill drinks, but great stencils and graffiti on the walls inside and out. On Thursdays they have free pizza with beer on their super-rad rooftop terrace, and there is a small print gallery in the back.

Club Konnex - La Bomba is a 14 piece drum set that plays here each Monday, and the club is in a huge converted warehouse space in Palermo that puts on various shows. Think Maritime (back in the good days). Best place to dance on Monday nights from 8-10pm.

Vegetarian Restaurants (Growing phenomenon in this meat-happy city):

Artemisia - the best (mostly) vegetarian restaurant for affordable prices. Great ambiance, get the Mediterranean starter plate. Love the paper bag menus.

Bio - Delicious, French countryside (clean) style cafe. Good for veggies in a city of meat-eaters, and affordable too.

Casa Felix - by far the best food we've had in Buenos Aires. Diego Felix and his wife invite a small amount of people into their house for a fixed menu every week on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights. They start with a tour of their backyard herb garden (with indigenous Argentine species) and the enchantment lasts through the five unbelievably delicious courses. The dinner is US$40 per person without drinks, which is a steal for the attention and flavors in store.

Streets
Thames - more of the "Palermo Hollywood" style but tons of boutiques and bars
Defensa - antiques, antiques, and beautiful buildings
Recoleta street - fun to look at the window displays in this ridiculously upscale part of town

Fundación Gente Nueva - PETISOS

2010-04-10T05:23:00.000-07:00

I recently visited an incredible program supported by One World Children's Fund (OWCF) in one of the most Southern regions of the world – Patagonia. I had the honor of meeting Elena Duron, founder of PETISOS and advocate for child rights and the elimination of child labor, and her husband Gustavo Gennuso who is the president of Fundación Gente Nueva. Elena is an Ashok Fellow who has been invited to speak about this program this coming May in Norway for the International Labor Organization’s conference on eradication of child labor. She took me to two locations and showed me everything from a local dump where they provide child outreach to the after school art programs and primary, secondary, and vocational schools.

PETISOS (Prevención y Eradicación de Trabajo Inantíl S.O.S.) operates under the umbrella of Fundación Gente Nueva in order to provide services for the children that live and work in the dump in Bariloche. The town itself is beautiful, but in addition to sweeping mountain views and famous chocolate manufacturers, Bariloche has many unseen neighborhoods that consist of people living in the garbage and using their children as laborers in attempt to make ends meet. They live in bare-bone housing in the least desirable spot in town – a bluff surrounding the dump that is unprotected from icy winds and that gets waist-high snowfall for a good part of the year. Gente Nueva decided to address this enormous disparity by beginning an outreach program (PETISOS) that begins with child rehabilitation and eventually reaches further to include the families as well.

PETISOS currently has 200 active students from 79 different families that benefit directly from its services (about another 200 children are benefiting indirectly through participation in after school programs). While Gente Nueva addresses the larger issues of quality education and community services in the region, PETISOS reaches out to those students who are socially and culturally outcast from the children living more stable lives. Most of these children are illiterate at an advanced age, with little to no formal primary or secondary schooling, and all of them work in some sort of capacity. The most common (and high risk) jobs are trash collection, working on construction sites, selling drugs, and in some cases, child prostitution. PETISOS has extensive one-on-one services for these children, with psychological counseling, a team of coaches that develops a “personal plan” for each child, vocational training, and even job placement for those who graduate from the program. From the first batch of 30 graduates, Elena was able to find 30 jobs in hotels, supermarkets, and restaurants in town – 100% successful placement of former child laborers!

The younger children attend the primary and secondary schools with everybody else – we visited a primary school of 400 that educated about 50 PETISOS children. These kids have access to a wonderful community center covered in paintings of flowers and cheerful designs, where they can draw, have a snack, and even participate in an orchestra that OWCF has made possible through the purchase of instruments. Local teachers volunteer their time so the children actually have access to high quality services even though they live on the outskirts of town. PETISOS also provides classes in Excel, Word, and Office, and vocational training for those who prefer metal and wood working to computers. All of the education is completely free of charge thanks to continued funding, and PETISOS works tirelessly to remove children from compromised situations and give them a childhood.

Bariloche, Patagonia

2010-04-08T11:19:00.000-07:00

A mere 25 hour bus ride from the bustling chaos of Buenos Aires lands you in a lakeside community (ski resort in the winter from June - September) called Bariloche. I was finally able to catch my breath and remember the larger things in life while I sat miles above sea level and away from the hectic traffic and murky coastline, perched in the ancient Andes. Ahhhh! Mountain air, miles of hikes, refugios in the mountains, and wildflowers all around have been the antidotes to the barrage of daily living in one of the biggest cities in the world. The buses that run here are plush and serve meals with red wine (vino tinto) or champagne, and the trip is well worth it. We pushed a little further into the Andean foothills to the small, hippy town of El Bolson for a couple of days which was even more relaxing and warmer. Bariloche is beautiful and kicks off the entire Patagonia route that leads south to the glaciers of Chile and Argentina. It is a ski town geared towards tourism, but further out you can wander and not see another soul for miles.

San Telmo, Buenos Aires

2010-03-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

San Telmo is the older part of Buenos Aires, a beautiful unfolding of cobblestone streets and small intricate doorways that lead to enormous terraces within colonial buildings. Balconies perch perilously over the street, many with pigeon fences to protect the inhabitants, and boast the most ornate carvings from lions to grape leaves. One could wander and just stare at the architecture in this part of the town for weeks, though the streets require as much attention to detail with infinite potholes and street grime.

In 1871 an epidemic of cholera broke out in this part of town, claiming 10,000 lives and an exodus of the middle and upper class citizens who lived in the gorgeous buildings (who fled to establish Barrio Norte in another part of the city). The properties were left abandoned, and many became housing for newly arriving immigrants from Europe. Thus, San Telmo became an incredibly multicultural neighborhood and center for industry. Only later, after the immigrants began to move out of the tenements did it become more Bohemian in the 1950's and 60's. That spirit can certainly still be felt in the cultural center, and the antique stores are absolutely to die for.

Nowadays super cool cafes line the streets, and for $2.50US you can get a cold beer, fries and watch couples tango in the plazas. The restaurants and bars are also really good in this area, from Italian to Sushi you can find anything, with delicious drinks going for about $4US for a martini or mojito (especially at Club Social). Less posh and more hipster, San Telmo is cheaper than other parts of the city and in many ways much more laid back.

Mexico City

2010-02-25T08:33:00.000-08:00

"Often described as a malevolent maelstrom of unbreathable air and rampant crime, the city nevertheless impresses visitors as a wonderfully weird and welcoming world, and captivates them with its year-round springlike climate, bubbling street life and abundant cultural offerings."

JantaLoans.org

2010-01-20T17:22:00.000-08:00

After a working hard on our year-long pilot program in India and (more recently) Nicaragua, our Janta website is up and running! Please come check us out at: JantaLoans.org

Janta is a non-profit that connects you to high-need students in developing countries that are looking for financial support. As little as $25 can help a student reach his or her goal of going to school, increasing lifetime earnings and the social benefits that come from having an education. Thank you so much for your interest in closing the worldwide education gap!

Final Photos from Turkey

2009-10-30T19:41:00.000-07:00

CaPpaDoCia (Anatolia)

2009-10-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

We went to Cappadoccia in the central Turkish state of Anatolia for 3 days. What an incredible trip. Turkey is divided into seven distinct regions, and Anatolia is certainly the driest and home to some of the first churches in the world. The Hitites lived in this region for a couple of thousand years before Christ, making their homes in beautiful rock formations. Some of these cave dwellings are in monoliths, some in the sides of steep mesas, and others in extremely unique and strange formations. We saw one example of the cave dwellings that was 20 stories high, like an ancient skyscraper. We also descended 8 stories underground into a total hidden underground city where 5,000 people used to live with no sun at all. Intricate ventilation and well shafts all carved into the stone create a sense of space in cramped rooms and tiny passages, made small to prevent knights in shining armor from entering. Even in the well-lit subterranean chambers and passages a sense of claustrophobia and insanity sets in – I can’t imagine living my whole life beneath the earth without the sunlight. Sometimes they would come up, but mostly people stayed below where it was safe from early Christian persecution, then (300 years later) the first Muslim invaders, then (400 years later) the Crusaders. After 1100 AD people stopped living there. I had a hard time understanding why people abandoned the gorgeous caves above ground, but after an hour of descending 10 stories underground into a complete maze and not seeing even 1% of the city, I was ready to surface.

Cappadoccia was just amazing. I had seen cave dwellings in southern Colorado at Mesa Verde and some of the most beautiful land formations in Southern Utah, but this was certainly something else. There are thousands and thousands of these caves, all unique, and some of the earliest churches in the world dating back to 330 AD. From outside, the caves look crude, like funny Dr. Seuss style dwellings in a total imaginative dream world, but the insides were unexpected. With domed roofs and columns, the caves seem like European churches, and many of these churches have Byzantine paintings depicting Bible scenes dating back to Constantine. The paintings of course have been re-applied several hundred times since then, but the style is the same, and entire stories are depicted for the illiterate people of those times. You enter the churches only to step on the graves of the congregation, the dead wishing to still commune with the living. There is no glass, are no guard rails, and no flash photography – there you are, in the oldest Christian churches in a now-Muslim country. Phenomenal. In a few years time I’m sure the tourism in this place will explode.

Istanbul, Turkey

2009-10-21T12:53:00.000-07:00

After spending a blur of an evening in Bucharest (we arrived around 12am and left at 11am from our hotel) we hopped on the last train of our journey: a mere 20 hours through southern Romania, Bulgaria, around the tip of Greece, and through Turkey to Istanbul. We slept in our own compartment in comfortable accommodations, which was fine because, as our new best friend the train attendant told us, "Bulgaria? I like to look at Bulgaria like I like to look at my ass! There is no something in Bulgaria" (I told him that "nothing" is the word for "no something"). But we enjoyed the ride until 1am when we had to unload to buy Turkish visas. Eastern European countries apparently have two borders, not one, for each crossing. I don't know what stands between all these dual borders, but certainly not options for two Americans who, when asked whether we'd pay in Euros or dollars we answered, "Romanian!" (I didn't even know the name for the currency). The man selling visas shook his head grimly. Our friend the attendant and the Turkish conductor spotted us 30 Euro to get us through... we were deeply grateful for his generosity and saving us from abandonment at the Turkish border in the middle of the night.

Arriving in Istanbul on the edge of the sea was a welcome change from rain, rain, rain. The Mediterranean climate and food is mild and perfect this time of year. Every morning for breakfast we've had different types of local breads, five types of sheep and goat cheese, Turkish coffee and olives with our eggs. Yummmmm! Istanbul is a city divided into 3 parts, so it's hard to know where to start. We stayed in the Old City of Sultanahmet in a small hotel close to the Aya Sofia - my mom's favorite. The Aya Sofia is an enormous domed church built sometime around 500 AD, with mosaics that had to be excavated under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk when Turkey became a republic. It's incredible to see both Christian and Muslim influences in the same ancient building and hard to believe that the Muslims covered the mosaics with plaster when it became a mosque...the amount of work that was done on the Christian mosaics below is almost painful. Sultanahmet is also home to the stunning Blue Mosque, perched on a high hill directly across from Aya Sofia, and the underground cistern with two giant Medusa heads grazing the fish-filled waters. Everywhere you turn there is beauty and ancient history.

For a more contemporary experience we left the Marmara Sea for the Bosphorous, only a 20 minute metro ride across the bridge, and went to Taksim. On a 2km pedestrian-only promenade you can see every single slice of Turkey. Old women from the country with head scarves, lots of young people wearing Western clothes, old men smoking pipes and walking in 3 piece suits, "fashion Muslims" walking the strip arm in arm with their shiny silk headscarves, pretty much every type of person you could imagine. There are TONS of people packed wall to wall, but the promenade is not claustrophobic, and you get into the rhythm of moving with the current of humanity. At night I found a great jazz club with my friend Pinar, and the Bienal is a contemporary art festival that was also happening at the time. Istanbul is a cross between contemporary and traditional cultures, where old and young mix and you can hop back and forth over the water from "Europe" to "Asia."

Among the incredible mosques, palaces, endless archaelogical museum and gorgeous tiled walls, one place especially stood out to us. Rarely have I ever been so shocked by a life experience that I come out of a situation floating on clouds, as if the trees and temples and Bosphorous Sea were all part of some elaborate wax museum that mimicked reality. However, as I stepped out of the last hall of many that we visited on the grounds of the sultan's palace perched high above Sulanahmet, my mom and I looked at each other in disbelief and laughed. I could attribute such surprise at simply not having done my homework or knowing what lay inside the unassuming chamber, where I saw a whole array of artifacts belonging to all the patriarchs of monotheism. Was it enough to see not one, but seven tufts of the Prophet Mohammad (may peace be upon him)'s beard? They had two of his swords used in his return to Medina, his bow and case, a jeweled box containing a tooth, an imprint of his foot and an armoirre. So far from Mecca and in a secular (though Muslim) country I could not believe that they had so many of his sacred relics. But that was not enough for the Turks. We saw the supposed shriveled right arm of John the Baptist, the very arm that baptized Jesus (peace be upon him, too), covered in gold, and a piece of his skull. Abraham's bowl sat in the same case as the arm, the eating utensil of the father of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. And across the way a petrified staff, looking strong and in good shape, which apparently belonged to Moses and was the very staff he held when he parted the Red Sea (or his walking stick around that time). So they say, all relics pillaged from Egypt, but we got our meager $5 worth from this unexpected room where we decided to poke our head at the last minute. There was only one thing I could say when we came out: "Holy f***!"

We ended our week with a beautiful boat ride to the Prince Islands, only an hour and a half south of the great city. We spent the day wandering all over the largest island, eying the enormous colonial-style wood houses that perch on the windswept cliffs. The islands don't have any motorized vehicles, so we took a horsecart to the topmost point to the St. George monastery, where 360 degree views showed ocean, other smaller islands, and, in the distance, the long snake of Istanbul along the coastline. The island was worlds away from the enormous city, and the views incredible. We took the ferry back and topped off our night with some incredible jazz in a small club with our Turkish friends, a perfect last day in Istanbul.

Enter "the East"

2009-10-19T09:38:00.001-07:00

Tiny houses with red roofs, only a single room large on subsistence plots, stately homes as you enter the outskirts of the upcoming industrial town, then industry and factories and smokestacks and tenements, the stately homes again, then the small shacks spotting the fields under the heavy and ominous sky as you break back into rolling fields of corn and green, green grass. This is what you see through the train window from Prague to Budapest. Rain sheets down sideways while snow falls lightly between the water, creating a blanket of illusion that looks strangely peaceful and terribly cold. The deciduous trees are all turning color, and the pines higher up on the hillside are covered in a very thin white layer and it’s breathtakingly beautiful. Life seems hard in these areas, not difficult to see in the closed faces of the people, or into the cold towns littered with graffiti. The largest (and seemingly hippest) place we passed through is called Brno in Slavakia, where a bunch of young people in fashionable clothes either entered or exited our train car. We sit warmly listening to Czech, Slovakian, or Hungarian, but mostly the people are silent.

And…into Budapest late at night (again), delivered into a gorgeous, arched train station with no ATM and closed information kiosk. Luckily, we had made our very first hotel reservation (other than London) in advance, and sailed to our bright, warm hotel amongst driving sleet. Despite the cool reception, we already loved the city. Our intuition was confirmed as we walked along the broad, Champs D’Elysse-like venues such as Andressy (similar to 5th Avenue of New York), which took us down to the banks of the mighty, roiling Danube. Along the way shops, hotels, churches, synagogues, bureaucratic affairs and opera houses all sit in enormous buildings with classical European architecture, the entire city hovering around the height of the sixth or seventh floor. The Hungarians certainly have a flair for design and hold nothing back in the intricate roof tiling, the layout of cobblestones beneath your feet, or in the majestic buildings that can be seen in all directions from nearly every intersection throughout the expansive downtown area.

One thing is for sure, having bucked Soviet power beginning with their revolution in 1956, the Hungarians are not quiet about their distaste for the communist state. All streets, squares, monuments and national galleries have re-acquired their pre-Soviet names, and the pride in the architecture (as contrasted to the industrial-utilitarian style of their northern enemy) has doubled. The city is beautiful and empty, invoking the feeling of Berlin’s wide an unpopulated thoroughfares with a design more akin to Paris. However, the move eastwards was not lost on us, and in the ancient Hungarian church we saw walls covered top to bottom in geometric patterns, more similar to Islamic artwork than repetitive Christian figures and martyrdoms. We crossed the Danube from “Buda” to “Pest” where we could look out over everything from the immense castle wall. We even made our way to one of the 7 “underground wonders of the world,” an intricate underground labyrinth under the fortress that supposedly could hold up to 10,000 people if needed. The quarters were tight, musty, and dark, but the natural underground caves which had been connected by people over millennia made us feel like we were walking backwards into pre-history.

We loved our three-day visit to Budapest, drinking amazing hot chocolate in the ornately gold-gilded New York Cafe, learning a bit about Hungarian folklore, and enjoying the last major European city on the cusp of Eastern Europe and (further) the Middle East. The prices are beginning to dive as English slowly wanes, and as we roll across Romania to Bucharest we’ve seen the landscape transform from impressive metropolis into small villages interspersed with industrial towns. Romania from the train window seems incredibly poor and isolated, yet the landscape looks almost identical to Californian wine country, with yellow hills and green canopies lolling in the distance (we even spotted some vineyards situated beneath the scattered snow pockets). Strange then to see a woman carrying sticks and wearing her traditional headscarf, or a man driving a horse cart through his cornfields. With infrastructure on par with India’s (large pipes running along the train tracks, rusted out compartments and factories probably from the Soviet days) while looking like California in fall, a strange sense of disorientation is setting in. Our train thumps through the pitch black past the place where Dracula supposedly lived, on towards the former home of inspiration for the legend: Vlad III the Impaler. With a long history of suffering and poverty (and some Dracula sprinkled in), Romania is a strange and barren land. Bucharest will be a quick stop before our 20 hour push to Istanbul.

Pious, Pitious Prague

2009-10-13T08:36:00.000-07:00

Well, in all honesty we were really looking forward to Prague. What we were confronted with was a wall of tourists nearly end-to-end in the Old City. The darkened, cobblestone streets that I had pictured were hard to navigate through bumbling groups trying to all take pictures and simultaneously walk and unfold umbrellas at the same time. Yes, awkward. And yes, beautiful. The city is certainly aesthetically pleasing with Gothic towers and Art Noveau styled entryways to many of the small shops. But at the end of the day, the ex-Soviet regime has put on its commercial hat and shows no signs of letting up. And for all the beauty and layers of history within the city, it's hard to see much past the glittery trinkets and neon signs from the center.

BUT, there are redeemable aspects of Prague as you get out of The Trap (as we began to call the main hub). The first restaurant we went to was an total gem. We thought we had topped the charts with a basket of Czech bread, two enormous Pilsners and delicious soup... until the live music started. A middle-aged man with an unending repertoire of techno-Polka began to bang out the tunes on his synthesizer. Jackpot, we loved it! Second best was an exhibit of Georg Baselitz (a German painter/sculptor) that we found incredibly raw and inspiring at the Rudolfinum on the Vltava River. The cemetery for the old Jewish Ghetto is eerily beautiful, but we had to wake up early and get there when it opened to avoid the hordes of people and around-the-block lines to get in. The headstones tipped and swayed with the settling earth in unexpected patterns, giving the graves a sense of peace. Most of the sites were 10-12 people deep, and the main synagogue was better preserved than the national museum. And Prague being the final home to the Czech artist Alfons Mucha meant that we had to pay tribute to the father of Art Nouveau. A collection of his beautiful lithographs can be found in a museum that shows only his work.

(On a separate not, DO NOT go into the Prague Castle, where a ticket and audio guide for two people comes to $120. The line to get a ticket extended well outside of the office, and after waiting for nearly 45 minutes just to get a ticket, we found that the prices had to be bargained for - no wonder it took us so long! We finally got the cheapest ticket - only to be able to walk in and see the chapel and a bunch of bureaucratic buildings. The beautiful, young woman trying to sell us our ticket lied about a two hour line that we would need to stand in without an audio guide, and when we still didn't want it she almost didn't sell us a ticket, saying she needed to sell the audio guide. Our whole bargain took about 10 minutes, with an hour-long wait out the door, nearly cost us over $100 for a racket, and I think we might have made that young lady cry because we simply didn't want an audio guide for an obscene amount of money. If you go to Prague, enjoy the free view from the castle, it's more beautiful from a distance anyways!)

So, all in all, Prague was a bit of a disappointment. As we battled the near-freezing rain and a barrage of tourists, our main sources of reprise were delicious homemade soups and large pints of good beer in quaint, warm cafes. Prague has been the home to endless battles, upheavals, religious clashes, despair, Soviet takeover, a Velvet Revolution and, ultimately, a peaceful city with beautiful architecture and it seems that everyone in the world must agree - ruining what should be treasured. At least we had the synthesizer and accordion!

East-West: Berlin

2009-10-11T12:14:00.001-07:00

Torn by historic animosity between east and west, wrecked by the German and Soviet armies during the death throes of WWII, encompassing the grandeur of communist and fascist dreams, Berlin today is thriving. Not economically per se, where unemployment hovers around 18% throughout the city, but in terms of being the most happening art hub in the world. In a city where rent is cheap (if not free in the countless squats that house entire artist colonies), making art is still not only possible but also probable. From street art to spontaneous performance, from “civil disobedience nests” in the park to thriving gallery collections, we finally made it to the artists' Mecca.

We landed ourselves in Mitte at the center of the city and began our exploration of the city's main museums, where five enormous museums have been constructed on an island in the center of the Spree River. We immediately decided to enter Pergamon, where German archaeologists have taken and reconstructed some of the several most impressive monuments from ancient Greece to Babylon (my mother was also blown away by the depth of the collection, saying it was even more complete than what she's seen in Greece or at the British Museum). When you enter the museum through a small door you are immediately confronted with an entire ancient Greek temple with a larger-than life characters from its frieze circumventing the space. Intimidating steps invite you to climb the stairs of the temple lit by natural skylights, and to turn and look back on the massive room housing the entire structure. From there you can enter another room, housing two more temple facades, and enter the third largest room through the original gate to Babylon, the Ishtar Gate. The gate is made of gorgeous blue tiles that rise to a formidable masterpiece. The museum was incredible, albeit stolen (or “acquired”) treasures from the ancient world, and three of the best exhibitions I’ve seen all housed in a single building.

After museuming during our entire first day (and meeting up with an old friend in the hipper part of town of Kreuzberg), our second day was dedicated to seeing national monuments and contemporary art. We made our way through the surreal Berlin architecture, passing from modern feats of glass and steal to classic European styled domed cathedrals, enormous beaurocratic buildings that later housed the Nazis, and, of course, the Wall. At the end of WWII, during the German’s last stand, 22,000 Soviet soldiers, 20,000 German soldiers, and 30,000 Berlin citizens were killed in ten days. It was only later that the liberating army became Berlin’s next oppressor, creating the infamous boundary between east and west; the Berlin wall.

The sense of Soviet occupation, the horrible atrocities orchestrated against European Jews from the Nazi capital, of the incredible suffering on the part of Germans on both sides of the Wall following WWII, and celebration following the collapse of the Soviet Union all hang on the cold, crisp air of Berlin. Enormous streets throughout the city, which have been pounded by the boots of countless soldiers from several countries over the past one hundred years, remain largely empty, the grandeur of the city underscored by empty sidewalks and sparse traffic. The people you do meet are incredibly friendly, and we spent the last half of our day visiting local galleries and looking at thought provoking artwork from the thriving art community. Some wine and food with my good friend Fox topped off our stay, having seen just about all we could see in the blur of a two-day visit.

AMSTERDAM!

2009-10-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

We left London on a train to Brussels, where we transferred to the Amsterdam line. Not stopping in the dreary, freezing capital of Belgium, we shoved along towards a city neither of us had visited. Leaving the Brussels station I looked out of my window to see women dancing in small window-cages in their lingerie for passers-by; I was under no illusion of still being in India now. The train ride took several hours - British, French, and Belgium countryside passing under in the relentless drizzle - and we arrived wet, tired and hungry at the Dutch-speaking station just after the sky had turned black. We quickly grabbed a cab to our hotel that we chose off a screen at the tourist info kiosk, and entered the most warm, garishly decorated lobby off a small canal. Our room itself sported several competing interior styles; the intricate wall-paper setting off the densely patterned carpet, our modern chandelier (that we LOVE) not matching the fake gold candelabras that hold our light bulbs, the thick, heavy and dark-colored (and might I add, dramatic) mauve curtain certainly has nothing to do with the faux black fur that rests on my bed as comforter, yet they all work. The Dutch interior decorations met nothing but admiration from these two Americans, too happy to put down our luggage and be out of the rain in an ensemble of patterns, colors, and material.

We were also both happy that we arrived late in the evening, because the next day as we strolled along the beautiful open channels we felt as though we were floating in a dream from which we had not yet woken. The skinny buildings sit so neatly side by side with their quintessential Dutch roofs, and the canals provide perfect guidance and serenity to walks through the old city. Having come from a hot climate, I quickly realized I needed boots to keep my toes warm as we move eastward, so we spent the day weaving in and out of amazing little neighborhoods with beautiful architecture looking for boots in countless funky boutiques. Finally (after finding a suitable pair) we made our way to the Reich museum to look at some of Rembrandt’s largest works. Unfortunately his drawings were not currently on display, but I have to say, a day spent walking in Amsterdam and an afternoon of seeing Rembrandt’s work up close comes pretty close to perfection. His darkened portraits have always been some of my favorite, and to see his work in his own place seemed to lend an extra magnetism to his familiar brushstrokes.

We spent our last day walking to Anne Frank's house, which has been preserved and constructed into an incredible Holocaust memorial. It was hard to imagine this almost fairy-like city under the heal of the Nazis, and the fear that gripped those who went into hiding as a desperate attempt to survive. Climbing the narrow staircase behind the bookshelf and arriving in the blackened quarters where 8 people lived for two years was hard to bear. Juxtoposed with Frank's poignant writing and her father's return from Aushtawitz to create this memorial, my mother and I were teary and in disbelief over the cruelty inflicted during the Second World War. We left feeling deeply moved and glad that we had seen this side of European Jewish history, emerging with a little more understanding of one of many phases this city has endured. Heading away we found a warm, quaint cafe where we could grab some tea and a croissant out of the rain and enjoy our last hours. Later we ate dinner at a little restaurant with melt-in-your mouth food, following up by walking through the famous red-light district (to see, not to buy) and passed up the sweet-smelling hash bars for a beer. A city more liberal than San Francisco, where everyone rides their bicycles even in the rain, led through gorgeous Dutch architecture by Venetian-like canals, Amsterdam has so far topped the charts for me. Next we will make our way to Berlin, and intensely fascinating city for me, before continuing on towards Istanbul.

London Town

2009-10-07T06:24:00.000-07:00

Leaving behind the heat and masses of India, I sailed over the Middle East and Eastern Europe to be dropped in India’s colonial forbearer; England. However, as I was transferred through the London airport I was struck by how many Indian faces surrounded me. True, I had just landed in an airplane filled with both English and Indian families all from Indian descent, but after waiting in an hour-long snaking customs line, I emerged to find the entrance hall nearly a carbon copy of Delhi’s. Bleary from the trip and a couple of high altitude glasses of wine I stared out at the many searching eyes and mass of families waiting to catch sight of their loved ones. Wait, did I leave India?

I hopped on the tube, relishing the cool rush of air, even enjoying the occasional shivers, and looked out of my window into the night. Beneath the each platform sign was the platform names typed neatly in Devanagri (the script for Hindi and several north Indian languages). Surrounded by people of Indian and Pakistani decent, chatting in British English, Arabic, or Hindi, I marveled at the ease and lack of tension between all the people on the train of all colors and backgrounds; another New England.

Emerging from the train I found a myself hailing down the famous English taxi and hopped in, shuddering off a few sprinkles of rain (thank the lord!) and was whisked off to meet my mother in a cozy B&B in Bloomsbury called The Academy. We spent a couple of days there, starting our trip with the Tate Modern, which rivaled the SF MOMA for it’s permanent collection, layout, and shows and beating the NY MOMA (we both agreed). The openness, FREENESS (as in no money) and layout of the museum was wonderful, and I found perhaps too much comfort reentering a culture that had also gone through a cultural renaissance vis a vis modern and conceptual art. What a gift.

We then made our way through narrow, wet streets through lines of clean, beautiful buildings to Westminster Abbey and then St. Martin’s in the Field, where my great-grandparents on my grandfather’s side were married. Amazingly on this pilgrimage into my mother’s and my lineage, we stumbled upon approximately 100,000 people (mostly Indians) celebrating Diwali in London’s main public square outside the British Museum. We were both so happy to see such a diverse population in London and cultural embrace in the old colonial center - at least in the limited spaces I occupied. Making our way back to the B&B, we had a pint in a local pub and prepared ourselves to shove off to Amsterdam. We will be back in London in a few weeks where I look forward to spending another couple of days exploring more of London’s bustling neighborhoods. The order and cleanliness, not to mention the cool weather, have been welcome changes from the hot and chaotic subcontinent, and I will be enjoying much, much more of that from London all the way to Istanbul over the next three weeks.

Come, walk with me.

2009-09-30T07:46:00.000-07:00

Climbing Out of the Deep End

2009-09-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's been three weeks of break-neck speed that I've spent in India; cutting costs, streamlining processes, and hiring replacements for the high turnover that exists in a company that services the BoP (bottom of pyramid, we're talking). Swimming in alphabet soups, the many hats of a start-up start spinning and play mind games with wearer. Who are we serving? The poor. Who are we courting? The wealthy. Are we efficient? Maybe. Do the benefits of our program justify the incredible costs of working in outlying rural areas? Probably. Are we covering the costs of petrol, man hours, transaction fees, high-risk loans, faxes, electricity (um, add internet connectivity) and stamps?...stamps! for chrissake. Yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes. Phew, I think I can actually leave feeling that I accomplished something in this quagmire of an industry. What's it called? Serving the BoP... international rural development...business management...product development...economic forecasting...educational microfinance. For me it's working towards poverty alleviation. I'm trying to keep my hats on straight, vision clear, and goals in pocket. I'm working for the poor and bankrupting my sanity in the process by taking a gamble and working towards something that matters to me.

On Monday I flew to Hyderabad to meet with a potential partner who gives loans to affordable private schools. They basically build school infrastructure and develop rating systems for the high-potential schools (rather than for the individual student). I've been following their work for a year now and enjoyed meeting the like-minds of those in the field (Indian School Finance Company, http://www.isfc.in). Getting off the plane and entering the sticky climate of tropical South India, I looked around at the immense number of women wearing full black burqas and checked myself on feeling overheated. The ghostly movement of women in long, black costume is something I'm still not used to, especially as we catch each other's dark eyes scrutinizing...who are you? However, it's the Muslim population that saves me in Hyderabad, where I can speak Urdu (similar to Hindi) in a land of Telagu. Whisked into a world past the "High Tech City" to the "Old City," where houses stack upon wretched waterways and alleys are overrun with mangled traffic and out of school children serving chai, I was reminded of what a tantamount social issue it is we've chosen to address. On the flip-side, because it's difficult, we are also one of the only companies in our field. Imagine...in the whole world. The common perception is that schools and education are government issues to be left to their own devices. But government schools are empty. Teachers take their paycheck and don't show. Crumbling brick buildings litter the landscape of many rural villages across northern India, cutting millions of people off from basic literacy and arithmetic.

So, what if? What if we could build school infrastructure? What if this could be a profitable business AND reach the poorest for reasonable prices? What if you had a market of billions of dollars AND billions of people at your fingertips? What if it began in investing in just one student, knowing you'd get your money back to invest in another? Well, in such a scenario, you might just have to take a pay cut, hop back up on the horse, and figure just how much it's going to cost to transfer those funds, hire someone to pick up a bag of money, drive it out to Madhubani in rural Bihar...well, after the floods recede. Sometimes it comes down to the little things, like floods, droughts, mudslides, migration, bank branches closing, cost margins, and stamps. Stamps, god dammit. It's not an efficient system, it's not an easy road; otherwise extreme poverty would have been solved a long time ago. But what can I say? I love it. I have the luxury to leave it, but I will be back.

Why Develop Student Loans in India?

2009-09-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

350 Million Children in India

85% primary school enrollment
100 million children out of school*

Why are so many children dropping out of school after 5th grade?

•School Fees / Uniforms / Books (direct costs)
•Child can work (opportunity costs)
•Distance to school (transportation cost)
•End of mid-day meal scheme (food costs)
•Gender discrimination/danger for adolescent girls (cultural barriers)
•Agricultural focus of rural economy
•Higher education does not ensure better employment.

Education is one of the best self‐help strategies in the struggle to escape poverty.

Our aim is to make small loans for education accessible and affordable for families who want to invest in a student. We choose borrowers and students based on need, performance, and earnings potential. Traditional entrepreneurial microfinance can be expensive, with interest ranging from 25-75% due to the high cost of working in rural areas with high-risk (non-collateral) loans. Our interest is subsidized, so it stays affordable around 12%, providing further incentive for parents who may not value education as much as a business loan (especially for girls).

Janta works with partner microfinance institutions (MFIs) who offer education loans and scholarships tailored to local needs. We provide loans for secondary and vocational students, and are working on a grant program for primary and pre-school students. $100‐$300 can fund a year of education in the developing world and dramatically increase lifetime earnings potential. There are so many social benefits to a good education, we are working really hard to provide this service to those who do not have access. Please stay tuned to what we're doing!

*These numbers come from the Gyaana project. All photos are from schools I've visited all over India.

Check it Out: Pratham Delhi

2009-09-18T07:44:00.000-07:00

Today I picked my way through alleyways lined with muck, at times stiffling my gag reflex at the various smells born on the warm winds. I was visiting educational centers in slum areas to see if our organization could possibly be involved with one of the key actors in providing education to out-of-school children: Pratham. Pratham began in the slums of Bombay, working to provide educational access to children similar to those in a recent Holleywood film, and has spread to become the key organization in addressing issues of drop-outs and child workers. Led by one of their regional coordinators, I watched small Muslim children walk proudly in their shiny costumes (today was the celebration of Eid) and eventually ducked out of a narrow, sewage-filled alley into a preschool. The small room was stiffling hot, and it took a moment for my eyes to adjust to the darkness and realize it was the teacher's living room/bedroom in which we sat. The teacher didn't seem to notice and for half an hour we sat in the thick, oppressive air of the room, giggling with the tiny children who were being introduced to the wide world of shapes and colors.

I actually visited four of Pratham's educational programs today in two different locations. Two were Learning Centers where they provide extra educational support for children of migrant laborers/slum populations, the others were preschools where they prep 2-4 year olds living in these areas so they'll be ready for school. Learning Centers are geared for children 8-13 who need academic support but live in families that can't afford extra tutoring or have the children working part time (as trash collectors mostly). Basically they help address the severe gap between these kids' education and the rest of the students in the government schools. These kids are on the fringe of becoming drop-outs and child laborers, supported only by these extra programs.

The teachers of Pratham programs were great across the board, the curriculum strong, the students engaged, and the infrastructure of the program phenomenal. The slum areas were wretched, impossible to imagine people even living in these conditions. However, people within the stacked houses give their rooms to the preschool program and it seems that a lot of children were attending (despite it being both a Hindu and Muslim holiday today, and I was told that numbers were really low). Hopefully we will be able to partner with Pratham in the near future and find ways to reach the youth and provide education - addressing one small strand in the tangled knot of poverty.

This is India

2009-09-17T04:02:00.000-07:00

Morning commute on a cycle rickshaw

As I sit here and try to think about what I could possibly write, I realize THIS. THIS is India, yes it is. Stripped of its romantic Sadhus and spiritual pilgrimages, of ancient civilizations and epic battles, of salt marches and elephant polo. Amidst the city, hustle-bustle of street life, men and women living in bastis next to nice hotels, the flurry of sari hems and dark eyes and chai stands by the side of the road, this is India, too.

So, where am I? Sitting in a glass spire building that seems to touch the sky at a mere 10 stories, but only because it rockets out of the surrounding village fields where people are tending to their oxen. In this high-rise commercial building I feel like a queen on the eighth floor with air conditioning blasting as Hindi voices chatter around me on the phone lines. This is India. And this is where a lot of things happen. I am in a small desk cubicle, I meet with colleagues in glass conference rooms, I have chai served to me by the passing chaiwallah every few hours, and yet we are all here to provide needed services to the (inner and) outer reaches of rural India. Lit by flourescents and powered by wireless, the people who work here contemplate the distribution lines for essential health products, cut costs to offer another banking branch in Assam, and, for me, create student loans that are an economically viable option for low-income families. It's pretty amazing to contemplate the stretch of this office's arm into the depths of rural India, it seems to be an antithesis of sorts when you first see the building.

How to build an enormous cement building with only manpower? With bamboo scaffolding, of course. Notice the concrete drying, top-down. All applied by hand.

Currently our company, Janta, is running student loans out of 25 kiosks in 4 states in northern India. Our partner Drishtee (sponsored by the Clinton Global Initiative and Acumen Fund) is at the forefront of rural development in northern India. Except instead of developing rural areas to take control of land, resources, or people, Drishtee goes through local communities to provide services in an attempt to stem urban flight. It is through their rural infrastructure that I am able to process our attempt at poverty alleviation through increased access to education, so today I'm feeling pretty lucky to be a part of their program. At the end of the day I'm glad to be in an air-conditioned office and still know that what we do here will eventually reach thousands of people.

Goodbye for Now

2009-05-28T20:24:00.000-07:00

So... my time in India is at a close. If you have been reading, following, and supporting me through this trip then thank for keeping this malfunktioning traveler company. India is the most difficult and easy place to write about all at the same time - kind of like the travel. The histories, the complexities, the ambiguous social knowledge about everything from Ayurveda and herbalism to colonial influence and conquerors can melt away with the brightest smile or disappear into the everyday continuities such as a head wobble that transcends all 300 Indian languages as well as most international ones, including English. I am more than aware of the incredible amounts of literature written about this country and sprouting from its populace; I have begun trekking its vast literary mountain range over the past six years. In offering my own thoughts here in this blog I have joined the traffic jam, adding my irrepresible desire to join the fray and share my experience of India with all of its eccentricities along with the well-worn paths of cliche and assumption. But India for me is best described in the details, best seen in the cracked knuckles and faces of the people - a place where recycled plastics, muck and human beings in the gutter are as telling as the bright billboards above their heads of Shah Rukh Khan or Amitab Bachchan or some other Bollywood star advertising skin-whitening cream or Pepsi or a new car. For India in numbers or generalizations is as debilitating as it is illusory.

In trying to comprehend India's bipolar nature I have read about Maharajas who paraded a thousand elephants adorned with gold and emeralds through Udaipur, Mughal temples that put European architecture to shame and dwarfed palaces like Louis the XIV's Marsailles, the Nizam of Hyderabad's secret underground chambers that contained wealth five or six times greater than the Queen's jewels, a popular and (predominantly) nonviolent revolution that helped to free the land of colonial condenscension after WWII, only to be followed by the largest human migration in history (after the Partition of Pakistan) and a massacre larger in scale than Rwanda, the completely materialistic, gaudy, and ostentatious show of wealth by much of the middle class today who have drivers to handle their Marutis and servants to serve them Fruttis, as compared to a massive workforce of call center ladies and technology whizzes, to the poor consisting of ragpickers, street performers, pigeon fighters, coal/gold/diamond miners, chaiwallahs, migrant laborers, slumdwellers, innumberable farmers, hunters and gatherers,monkey-grinders, and shepherds (not to mention the drivers and servants themselves) who make up the bulk of India's population.

Inevitably my experience comes through my own eyes, ears and mouth as a foreigner looking through the looking glass from outside of its domain. I can choose (usually) when I participate in the spectacle and when I want to separate myself and become the observer of the differing customs and social values. Therefore, I pass the final sum-up to Pankaj Mishra, who explains the phenomenon of the foreign perspective in his introduction to India in Mind, a catalogue of short essays on India written by travelers over the past century:

"[Those who] traveled to, and wrote about India in the last century; they took their ideas and habits of rational analysis from a successful western civilization. By attempting to understand India through their own cultural and intellectual inheritance, they reveal honestly a variety of assumptions and prejudices whose history goes back to Herodotus, to the earliest images of India in the West.

Such continuities, extending over two millennnia, may seem odd. After all, you are told by conventional history that during the last century... India moved from being a backward British colony to a modern democratic nation state. But these changes often seem superficial to the outsider, and so they are to a large extent. After more than fifty years of modernization, India is far from being made over in the image of a Western country. It remains too poor and populous and bewilderingly diverse. Its history lies in obscure ruins, not in museums, its religions proliferate in everyday life, not in grand organized churches, and its food is best had at homes, not in restaurants. Its heat is severe, its rain unending. It rarely inspires pure affection or admiration in the way Italy or Greece, other sites of great civilizations, do. It often poses harsh challenges. The reactions it evokes are complex, ranging from awe and wonder to repulsion and rejection. They tell us as much about the traveler as the world he describes."

Thank you for following me through this trip, hopefully I will be back here writing again on my next adventure and I will continue to be posting (though not as often) while in the US. Shanti, shanti, shanti. Peace, peace, peace.

Our Company, Janta

2009-05-26T02:22:00.000-07:00

Although I have been writing about travel, travel, travel for the past several months, I have actually been working as I hop from place to place and wanted to introduce our organization here. Janta is a company based in San Francisco that is working for global child education through micro loans. At this point we have developed three separate loan options for our borrowers roughly corresponding to $100 for a primary student (/year), $200 for secondary students, and $300 for adults seeking vocational training courses. Our loans are designed to reach those who may otherwise not be able to afford education for their children or themselves, and we have been thrilled to have high repayment rates from our borrowers so far. I have been mostly monitoring the progress of the one hundred loans we have been running for our initial pilot program in northern India over the last eight months and trying to streamline the incredibly complex (and sometimes unpredictable) process of working in village areas. As I mentioned before, we are operating through our partner organization, the Drishtee Foundation, who offer small business loans, health services, and job opportunities in roughly 2,000 villages to curb urban flight. As is often the case in micro-finance, the poor pay back their debt much better than wealthy Americans and Europeans pay their credit card bills, and we are hoping to be able to expand across rural India and eventually internationally based on the past successes of microcredit. Faced with the alternative of no borrowing power, the poor have shown incredible repayment rates time and time again.

If you have been following my blog so far and are interested in donating, helping, or otherwise getting involved, I hope that you ask me about our program so that you can lend (or give) small amounts of money to students around the world. We don't have our website up and running as of now, but when we do you can choose which students you would like to fund, and for what amount. If you choose the loan option, your money will return to your account so that you can either reinvest in another student or withdraw from the banking business. I will definitely announce our launch when it happens! Until then, take a look at some of our contemporaries at the following sites:

For Indian street children, drop outs and out-of-school children visit: http://www.pratham.org

For lending money to entrepeneurs around the world visit: http://www.kiva.org

For the work done by People First in Bihar visit: http://www.peoplefirstindia.net

To set up a social giving account as a gift: www.youthgive.org

And for all sort of amazing global projects visit: http://www.oneworldchildrensfund.org

Thoughts for the Day

2009-05-26T02:21:00.000-07:00

"But where Delhi was unique was that, scattered all around the city, there were human ruins too. Somehow different areas of Delhi seemed to have preserved intact different centuries, even different millennia. The Punjabi immigrants were a touchstone to the present day; with their nippy Maruti cars and fascination with all things new, they formed a lifeline to the 1980s. The old majors you would meet strolling in the Lodhi Gardens were pickled perhaps half a century earlier. Their walrus moustaches and Ealing comedy accents hinted that they had somehow got stuck in about 1946. The eunuchs in the Old City, some speaking courtly Urdu, might not have looked so out of place under the dais of the Great Moghul. The sadhus at Nigambodh Ghat I imagined stranded citizens of Indraprastha, the legendary first Delhi of the Mahabharata, the great Indian epic."

-William Dalrymple, City of Djinns

"China's population of 1.3 billion constitutes more than a fifth of humanity. Asia's population, in total, includes 60% of humanity. Asia's fate is truly the world's fate. But well beyond the sheer numbers involved, there is something deeply ironic about the basic economic fact that China and India are poor countries catching up with the high-income world. After all, both China and India are ancient civilizations that in important ways were far ahead of Europe not so many centuries ago."

-Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty

Delhi Ho!

2009-05-23T02:42:00.000-07:00

After an incredible five months away from the states I am back in Delhi and preparing for my last week in India. It was not easy leaving the flowering hillsides of Paravati (or the snow) to return to the sweltering heat of this city, and the bus ride was a nightmare. I was swindled for the thousandth time in the thousanth way (again vowing to never be swindled again having learned a new sideways technique of the ever-scheming bus-wallas) and spent my night with the other two tourists on the bus in the very back against the harsh incline and metallic rigidity of the end seat. Watching with impotent rage as our Indian counterparts snored in cushioned recliners ahead of us, we yelped expletives each time our bus driver hit a hole in the road- in the Himalayas, mind you- sending us airborn and crashing into each other all night. When I woke with a sharp pain in my back, neck and knees at sunrise, I was primed to fight with somebody, anybody, about my condition. But where was the driver? He had turned off the main road from Delhi and was taking pictures of empty land strewn with bricks with his cell phone (clearly thinking of buying) in some obscure little town in Haryana while his passengers slept. When he pulled back onto the country road and into a small chai stand to ask for directions (can you imagine? "Excuse me, where is Delhi?") I nearly lost it. But what to do? Or, as the locals often say with a shrug and dismissal, "why like this?"

Luckily when we did finally reach a bus stand on the outskirts of the capital I found an honest rikshaw-wallah to take me to my hotel. He complemented me on my Hindi, assured me that he was my little brother (although he looked to be about 45), and asked the usual questions, which unfortunately always consists of American sexual customs. Pulling the rickshaw to the side of the road and offering me a bidi, he timidly asked, "Just one question, madame. Please, I am curious. In your country, on the night of wedding, is it the same?" And inhaling from my bidi, exhausted from the busride, I sighed and said, "It is the same, my friend. We are not God, only animals.... monkeys at the very best. It is the same in the whole world." Clearly pleased with my answer he started up the motor of his rickshaw, inhaling deeply the morning Delhi pollution with his tiny rolled tobacco. "Aha, madame, very good thinking you. This is true, we are not God. Very good." With this my Muslim friend skipped the custom of taking me to five of his cousin's hotels and actually dropped me where I had requested, for the price agreed. And as such rites of passage often dump me into this melting pot of histories, cultures, languages, confusion, and more confusion, I have arrived in Delhi. Luckily the heat is not what I expected, not nearly as bad as how Dalrymple describes Delhi in May:

"As soon as you awoke you knew it was going to be hot. The sun had just appeared over the treeline, as blond as clarified butter but powerful nonetheless, hinting at the furnace-heat to come. Soon the kites were circling in the thermals, a great helix of wide-winged birds sailing the vectors in sweeping corkscrew spirals. By late morning the air was on fire; to open the door on the roof terrace was to feel in your face a blast of heat as strong as that from a blazing kiln. Noon came like a white midnight: the streets were deserted, the windows closed, the doors locked. There was no noise but for the sullen and persistent whirr of the ceiling fans."

I think a bout of rain has saved me from this more familiar Delhi (the one with the sledgehammer heat) but I will not wait around to find out. I will focus my last week on the success of our Jantaa student loans (stay tuned!) and then challo! back to Amrika. For sure I will miss the little things: chai stalls, old women's smiles, the infamous and all-meaning head wobble, pointing at various things and saying "very danger!", but not others, such as my busride last night and all the experiences like it that make traveling in India traveling in India. But for now I will go to my favorite street dhaba, order a thali (a plate of food that consists of rice, vegetable, dhal, and chapati), and sum it up with a chai. Maybe this one will be the thousandth chai of my trip.

Magic in Paravati

2009-05-17T01:15:00.000-07:00

Sometimes in India I get that special feeling where all anxieties wash away, where I feel connected to the people around me, and where the world can be truly a magical place. My adventure of the last week has brought me back to that point, which just so happens to be in one of the more beautiful places I've ever seen. Here in the Paravati Valley the people are truly friendly and the nature leading into the valley presented some of the most unique ecosystems I've seen. Heading into Himalayan ice caps, I saw tropical birds dive from one palm tree to another on the white sandy shores of the Paravati river. Snow caps loomed in the distance, yet evergreens, deciduous, and even some palms were all thriving, with small flowers dotting the cliffs and enjoying the endless water supplies and intense mountain sun. Until this point I had experienced Indian hospitality (and that of several other countries) but, wow, I didn't know what friendliness could be until I met the Himalayan people here. Smile wrinkles on the oldest and youngest, old men reaching for laughing young babies, women giggling, and the absolute hospitality is unreal.

I met two great Iranian friends in Rishikesh who convinced me to travel with them to Paravati rather than continue up the Ganga to Gangotri. Now I am staying with a family in a bright blue house in a small mountain village near the town of Pulga (past the pilgrimage site of Manikarna), and they have encouraged us to enjoy our time "100%, not 99%, but full enjoy!" So we have taken them up on the challenge and explored some of the waterfalls and terraced fields that surround our village. Last night we danced with the village in a large circle that seemed to be a celebration of some sort of combination of the end of election time and a successful cricket match for India. No matter what the reason, I can't imagine a more genuine and truly beautiful place to be. The 24 hour bus ride is still sitting in my bones and Delhi seems a million miles away from the peaceful and fruitful pace of the Himalayas, so I will enjoy it as much as I can before I have to leave.

Pictures from Rishikesh

2009-05-17T01:10:00.000-07:00

Rishikesh

2009-05-08T05:36:00.001-07:00

I am now in Rishikesh, a small Hindu city perched on the stones above the brown tides of the turbulent Ganges, and it feels good to be embarking on the same route as so many Hindu pilgrims. Spending days relaxing, watching the river pour through the large gorge, meeting lots of travelers and actually swimming in the icy waters I have found a prime spot to spend my last little bit in this crazy country. I am finding lots of musical inspiration in the place where the Beatles wrote the White Album and the resounding river bounces off cliffs from the tallest mountains in the world, and have located the one clandestine restaurant that serves eggs for breakfast (Rishikesh is a strictly vegetarian town). Although most people here in the "Yoga capital of the world" head straight for the ashrams and meditation halls, I have accepted the fact that I will be drinking expresso and lounging on the little white sandy river beaches while I read "City of Djinns," and let other more committed members of the international spiritual community contribute to the awareness-raising craze surrounding this place.

I pick my way down small paths through the local villages where makeshift "ashrams" (though actually just shanty huts in the forest) support the babbling, bandy-legged babus who bathe, pray, meditate and wash their orange robes in the cooling waters. The temperature is still high, though not the blistering degrees of Varanasi, and it is nice to be at a spot closer to the source of glacial output and upstream from any factories and much of the civilization that contributes to the Ganges of Varanasi. Wherever I go I see these hunched holy men in their g-strings, giving perfect puja to the river of their scriptures, and I can more easily understand such worship where the water runs clean. At night the sky is lit with crazy lightning and thunder, winds ripping through the canyons and banyan trees, turning to warm and manageable breeze by daybreak. Rishikesh is a wild, rough, spiritual and, ultimately, completely relaxed compound where one can just BE.

Hinduism in its Form

2009-05-05T03:08:00.000-07:00

As I sit and drink a chai in a small shop hovering over the Lakshman Jhula suspension bridge overlooking the "Yoga Capital of the World," I can't help but overhear a passionate discussion behind me between three Hindu men discussing the fact that India is a Hindu nation. Now, I don't want to get into it too much because the elections have just passed and the mudslinging and religious divisions have not died down yet after the divisive and (in my opinion) unethical call to arms by many fervent politicians. I have avoided so far jumping into the alphabet soup of Indian politics, with her hundreds of parties and political blocs, not because it's not interesting but because it is exhausting. The polling, the protests, the votes by caste, the votes by religion, the mafia bids, the realignment of political allies and parties is beyond this little bird's comprehension and desire to comprehend - like a Bollywood movie gone badder. As the last of the polling tides finishes up in the world's largest "democracy," the results will take still another month or so to come in before we know who will be next to take power and inform our wavering expectations. But this entry is not meant to be concerned with politics (as I have said, I've avoided it for a reason) but religion, which I am trying to tease out from the former as best I can.

I was raised a Christian, but upon turning away from my monotheist upbringing, I pulled a lot of teachings and world views from Hinduism over the years. There is something very comforting about being surrounded by 30 million gods and goddesses who, not unlike Greek deities, have human attributes and falability that allows for some sort of approach, a chink in the stone to act as a handhold while scaling the spiritual mountain. Sometimes when things are tough, it is helpful to invoke the pot-bellied, elephant-headed god Ganesh to remove my obstacles. And there is the demure-looking Lakshmi showering gold upon our heads during financial crisis, Saraswati on the lotus, strumming a sitar and embodying knowledge for all her Hindustani students during exams, and Hanuman, with his hunky manly chest and creepy monkey face, showing utter devotion, strength and energy in his service to God. I do not believe that these gods exist in a literal sense any more than Zeus, Achilles or Aphrodite, though I found using mantras and invoking their names (meaning my own inner attribute with a funny monkey face) quite helpful from time to time. But in a very prescient sense, these gods are real. As real as Jesus is to Christians and Mohammad is to Muslims, the blue-skinned Krishna plays his flute for the Hindus as a creation of collective consciousness that binds Hindu to Hindu, and thus to a "Hindu nation."

My play of mind with the benevolent and, frankly, charismatic Indian gods has now become uncomfortable as I enter into the more devout regions of Hinduism. As much as a godhead has provided support to me throughout my life, I find that upon further examination (when I realize the existence of that support as a support and not as some sort of higher reality) the notion of God vanishes and a literal interpretation of the scriptures becomes suffocating. I watch as Hindu pilgrims prostrate before idols of Ram, Krishna, and Shiva, and a subtle sense of uneasiness takes over my being. I know that for the many Muslims in this country to worship an idol is the purest form of blasphemy, and yet there are idols on nearly every street corner, in every rickshaw, and overlooking every chai shop in India. From history we know that the precarious religious balance struck in India's streets can, in moments, become a bloodbath. Partition, the murder of Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards, the Gujurat riots and current Christian/Hindu violence in Orissa show that Hindus are not as all-embrasive as they can seem in their day-to-day living. But here Hinduism is in full force and with zeal, and I find my formerly benevolent love for Hindu scriptures and epics up for critical discussion and questioning.

What I realize is that as much as I exist, this concept called "Mallory" with a name and form and thousands of attributes that others consign to me, Shiva also exists. Christ has been dead for two thousand years (or perhaps he never existed), and yet he is a fact today as any human identity. As an idea, as a construct of the collective conscious, as a story to be rejected or accepted, Shiva, Christ, and Mohammad are facts in this modern world: real beings that have political and personal impact in our lives. And an uneasy fear takes shape in me as I march up the Ganga from Varanasi to Rishikesh and on to Uttarkashi and Gangotri (all Hindu sites of pilgrimage) and feel the sway of these invisible gods. I feel the fervor of those who chant mantras under their breath, bow to statues of smiling, effeminate gods, and dip in the holy Ganga. In one moment what can be so beautiful can also ignite hate, which is the unfortunate power of dogma. It almost seems irresponsible at this point (excuse me, please, for the offense) to purport a faith or belief system that, at the end of the day, serves to divide humanity, separating one person from another. For me, this is the basic seedling of violence, a force that creates divisions, hierarchy and authority outside of one's own reasoning and insight. In this religious outpost of what I perceived to be one of the more accepting religions of the world, I have been reminded once again that any religion can become a force that separates us from our own human experience and thus fractures the potential understanding of unity beyond division... the basis of tolerance.

Crash Course on International Development

2009-05-05T02:14:00.000-07:00

How does one approach the incredibly fine balance of working internationally towards poverty alleviation, imposing oneself for the "betterment" of the poor uneducated/dispossessed/displaced/(fill in the blank) of the world? How does one approach an, if not unknown, otherwise foreign framework of government, society, cultural values, etc. and infinite distinctions within each of those without posing the utter condescension of claiming to be "objective" in an ultimately subjective and interdependent process? The failures, realignments and corrections to inevitable pitfalls form the tightrope of international aid, investment, and business, and Jeffrey Sachs has laid out a handy framework for sketching a portrait of a region or nation in his book The End of Poverty. I thought I'd share my notes on how to approach international work because the processes involved are humbling in the amount of time and effort one must invest from the start, and also because I found it useful to have an outline. With the risk of people becoming "disillusioned" with international work because of the "corruption/lack of will/moral depravity of the people/(again, fill in the blank)," it is important to first start with some groundwork, and this text really showed me many shortcomings of the international community haphazardly entering into humanitarian or social work. What we lack mainly is what Sachs calls "differential diagnosis." Although the amount of research that he proposes is probably twice as much as the American government did before going to war with Afghanistan, the point is that we need a similar, if not more thorough, knowledge of an area to be as productive in peacekeeping as we are in war. My notes from his book are as follows, I hope you find it helpful if you are interested in this type of thing:

1. Measure the Extent of Extreme Poverty

Create poverty maps: household surveys, geographic information, national income accounts, etc.
Proportions: Extreme poverty, schooling, health care, roads, water, sanitation, electricity, nutrition (for both urban and rural communities)
Risk Factors: demographic trends (birth/death/international or internal migration), environment (sea level, erosion, deforestation, land degradation, depletion of water, biodiversity loss), climate shocks, infectious disease, world fluctuations in key commodities

2. Research Economic Policy

Cost of doing business in the country (regionally), coverage of key infrastructure (power, water, roads, transport services), how are costs affected by lack of infrastructure, trade policy framework, how are trade barriers impinging on costs of production (especially exports), investor incentives, is government investing in human capital (health, nutrition, disease control, education, and family planning)?

3. The Fiscal Framework

Levels of budget spending/public revenues (% of GDP and $/person), public spending in GDP in various categories (health, education, infrastructure), overhanging public sector debt, how much would debt relief contribute to government capacity to expand public services, hidden off-balance-sheet lines on public sector (debts of central bank, hidden losses of commercial banking system)?

4. Physical Geography and Human Ecology

Transport conditions, proximity of population to seaports & airports, rivers, paved roads, railways, costs of transport freight (fertilizers, food crops, machinery, industrial products) within country & internationally, distribution of population, how does distribution affect infrastructure costs?
Agronomic conditions affected by physical environment, length of growing season, how does it affect crop choice/nutrition/income levels, soil patterns, topographies, hydrology and land use affecting crop yields, suitability for irrigation, land improvements, long-term/international climate change?
Ecosystem degradation (erosion due to deforestation, lack of pollination due to lack of biodiversity, etc.), invasive species (fertility & fisheries), toxins/water
Disease from ecological reasons, malaria (epidemic or endemic?), animal disease patterns, plant pests (to livelihoods, international trade, human health, etc.)

5. Patterns of Governance

Leader (democratic, dictator, communist, etc.)
Management of registering business, trading property, defending contracts, bidding for government endorsement
Public services provided (water, sanitation, power, basic health, education)?
Corruption - does government represent narrow elite or certain ethnic group?

6. Cultural Barriers to Economic Development

Class, caste, ethnicity, religion, gender inequity (legally, education, reproductive rights, informally)
Women - can they participate in economy outside of household, can they own/inherit land, can they vote?
Ethnic Groups - is there discrimination, inter-ethnic violence, diaspora?

7. Geopolitics - Security and Economic Relations

International sanctions, cross-border security threats (refugees, terrorism, warfare), regional trade groups, trade barriers from wealthy world

Point/Counterpoint

2009-05-05T01:52:00.000-07:00

"I am talking about a place in India, at least a third of the country, a fertile place, full of rice fields and wheat fields and ponds in the middle of those fields choked with lotuses and water lilies, and water buffaloes wading through the ponds and chewing on the lotuses and the lilies. Those who live in this place call it the Darkness. Please understand, Your Excellency, that India is two countries in one: an India of Light, and an India of Darkness. The ocean brings the light to my country. Every place o the map of India near the ocean is well-off. But the river brings darkness to India - the black river."

-Aravind Adiga, White Tiger

"The hell with it. I'm sounding like William Dalrymple or some other jumped-up Fleet Street hack sent on a two-month mission all expenses paid, to bring back 'the message of India.' No two Indias for me. I don't believe in retailing wisdom like, 'Our India is not as real as their India' or echoing Gandhi's wistful 'The real India is in the villages' or resuscitating that amber-preserved 'timeless India' which Nirad Chaudhuri kept as a pet until it died of nostalgia in Oxford.
Where I am, where I have been, what I have seen and heard, there is my India."

-Vijay Nambisan, Bihar Is in the Eye of the Beholder

On the Ganga

2009-04-30T00:00:00.001-07:00

We can send a shuttle into space, we can build the [new] Delhi Metro. We can detonate nuclear weapons. So why can't we clean up our rivers?

—Rakesh Jaiswal, Environmental Activist since 1993

The time has come to leave my beloved Varanasi, and to be honest it is TIME!! The Ganges plain is no place to be in the summertime, and radiating heat has thoroughly affected my brain and almost all of my decision making capacity. I was lucky to have enough wits about me to have booked a train to Rishikesh (not much cooler, but) a convenient spot to visit some of the most holy places of pilgrimage for Hindus in the Himalayas. From Rishikesh I will take a bus to Uttarkashi, the last stop off before the Gangotri glacier. Gangotri, the source of the mighty Ganges, is still closed for the season, the road packed in ice (ahh, ice!) so I will make my way in that direction and wait for the first thawing to occur so I can dip in the frigid, (clean) glacial water.

In reporting from India, I often have to resist the temptation to make grand statements, to wallow in the depravity of the human condition here, or to extol its merits too much. Basically, to wax cliche, for each statement their exist strong contradictions, and sometimes my tendency to notice the poverty can lead to seemingly unending questions and zeal that is not always realistic or productive. But India is home to a third of the world's poor, and the massive issues that come with that fact cannot be ignored. Sometimes I want to cry when I see old women stooped in the streets of Varanasi, begging alms and dressed in tattered rags. I can't help but wonder how someone can spend so many years on this earth and end up in this condition - old and sick, begging in the filthy streets and living out of garbage heaps. Where is there justice for the incredibly hard lives of the poor? For the sake of myself and those who are interested in India, I try to not to see and discuss poverty only (for India has many faces), and keep my tirades mostly to myself. But to look at India one must take into account its many contradictions, and they are often not sweet to the eyes or ears. Basically, poverty is not sexy. And perhaps one of the great contradictions in this wildly confusing country is the state of the sacred river that runs through the northern part of the subcontinent: the Ganges. In turning away from the nastier truths that one confronts here, too many people ignore the reality of the current condition of a river that has sadly become an appropriate symbol of the discord between ancient Indian philosophy and modern day practices.

The Ganga is putrid at this point in its 1,600 mile trip across the teaming plains to Calcutta. Although the water is not black like the Delhi Yamuna (which has been devoid of any life for at least a decade), the waste levels are alarming. In Varanasi, the coliform bacterial count (from human and animal waste) is at least 3,000 times higher than the standard established as safe by the United Nations world Health Organization. The extreme pollutions affects the lives of roughly 400 million people along the banks of the Ganges, who also add to the the nearly 1 billion liters of untreated sewage that enters the water every day. Well-intentioned but poorly implemented programs do exist in the form of the Ganga Action Plan (GAP) but, as in many developing countries, the environment has taken the back burner to India's push towards industrial production and policy laxity for textiles and leather production (the largest industrial pollutants of the river). In addition to the sewage and industrial chromium, one can easily see how many bodies are dumped into these holy waters each day, mostly as remains from the ever-burning creamation ghats. But apart from bits of skull and breast plates, children, pregnant women, sadhus, and people dying from cobra bites are not allowed to be burned, and so they are wrapped in cloth, tied with stones, and dumped in the river. At a time with the water is so low, one can imagine the effect on the environment.

In the Ramayana (a sacred Sanskrit epic written roughly 400 years before Christ's birth), Lord Vishnu declared, "Man becomes pure by the touch of the water, or by consuming it, or by expressing its name." There is no doubt that Varanasi is a special place, a site of prayer since a time when other ancient civilizations like Mesopatamia and Demascus were thriving, and because of their faith, millions of people partake in ritual baths each day on the banks of this environmental tragedy. Many Hindus refuse to accept that the river has become a source of illness, deformities, and high infant mortality, and because they have no other options, people continue to use and destroy their beloved resource. Veer Bhadra Mishra, an engineer and Hindu priest who's led a campaign there to clean the river for two decades, expresses his concern for Hindus. "They want to touch the water, rub their bodies in the water, sip the water," he said, "and someday they will die because if it." This issue, like most, involves all of the other intractable problems associated with poverty - lack of health, sanitation, basic education - which makes it seem like another impossible cause in India. But problems like poverty do not disappear on their own, and in a country with a population growing by approximately 1,815 people every hour, environmental issues like this one need to be discussed and addressed by the central Indian government, however unsexy they may be.

—Excerpts from "A Prayer for the Ganges" by Joshua Hammer;

Smithsonian; November, 2007; pages 75-82.

"Many things in the life, say."

2009-04-24T00:10:00.000-07:00

Recovering from a sudden and completely debilitating fever (it happens here) I have a distinctly euphoric feeling of re-entering the land of living after coming out of an Indian illness. With my emerging new-found love for life and opening senses I notice that the heat has subsided, and a couple of days away from the tabla has only re-invigorated my interest in the instrument. During the afternoons I practice in my room with my friend Prabhu's daughter, Kritika, who draws next to me with my pens. It's not that she is more tolerant of the repetitive drumming (well, she is), but she is deaf and dumb - a sharp young girl who cannot speak or hear in a city without sign language. Prabhu has looked for special schools or teachers to help her learn to communicate by signing, but so far his efforts have gone unrewarded and she lives in a mute world in Varanasi. So Kritika and I often spend our afternoons together with Lucky, a tiny puppy that her brother brought in off the street (truly lucky), in a copacetic arrangement as I tap out the familiar rhythms on my drums.

I have known this family for almost six years now, and have come to love each of them for different reasons. The father was a well-respected criminal lawyer in Varanasi before he retired, the mother a wonderfully strong yet sweet matriarch in the family, Muna and Prabhu are their sons, with each of their wives and collective five children constantly buzzing around the house and chirping in Hindi at each other. Prabhu and Muna have become good friends of mine over the years, Muna more reflective and philosophical (and also my tabla teacher), and Prabhu always hatching new schemes with a more fly-by philosophy on life. Prabhu is actually one of the funnier people I know, with endless stories that take such random and dramatic twists I can't help but laugh out loud. Take for instance, the evening we were talking about the Mughalsarai train station.

"Oh, Mughalsarai, very bad place, say. One time I spend one night in Mughalsarai police station. But I was very lucky, very lucky. Police only hang me for ten minutes before my mother came, say."

And me, spluttering the sip of water I was just taking, "Yes, yes, very lucky, Prabhu! The police only hung you for ten minutes. What are you talking about?"

"It was very crazy. Police arrest me and my friends, say. We were drinking, playing cards in the house, and they barged in the door, say. They put bags over our heads, took us outside and put us in the car, but how long can you sit with bag over your head? Not very long! So I take bag off and see, 'Ah, we're going to Mughalsarai! Oh no, very bad place!' And one policeman was my uncle, but he doesn't recognize me because the bag's over my head. So I tell him, say, 'Sir, you are my uncle! You know my father!' But he just tells me everyone says these things, so I am quiet."

"So you uncle didn't recognize you?" I ask incredulously.

"Well, not my uncle. Cousinsisterbrother's son. But STILL my family, he should know me. So then I'm in the jail, say. I hear my friends in the other room where police are interrogating them... very long time, more than ten minutes. They ask them, 'Where are the machine guns?' They think we are mafia!" Here he starts giggling, and for emphasis, "they think we are MAFIA!" Again gigling. "Then I tell one many who is coming in and out of the jail to visit his friend, 'Call my parents, tell them I am here!' But this man is very stupid man. I think Muslim. Very stupid man. He tell me, 'I can't remember your number.' So I write it on my shirt and slip it through the bars. 'Please call my parents!' But this man, so stupid, he says he doesn't know how, says he can't do it. No phones. Very stupid. So I have to wait for another visitor to call my parents, it took a very long time! Then my turn comes. Policeman takes me into questioning. Hangs me by my hands, behind my back, say, and asks, 'where are the machine guns!' (giggling). But I was very lucky, say, after ten minutes my mother walked in. I only had hanging for ten minutes, my friends had much worse. Mughalsarai very bad place, very bad! But many things in the life, say."

Despite being the son of a criminal lawyer (and cousinsisterbrothernephew of a police officer), Prabhu has many such stories. Some about running for his life during the communal Hindu-Muslim riots, one about a very ill-concieved scam that landed him and his friends in Bihar at the hands of a murderous mob. He's an incredible story teller with even more incredible stories to tell, each of which always end up with some all-inclusive, general summary that makes everything ok. "But many things in the life, say." In any case, one of many moments, many stories, where I look out over this city and marvel at the intertwined lives and how different human existence can be for so many different people, and all I can do is shake my head.

113 and Rising

2009-04-21T02:22:00.000-07:00

It's getting to be past the stage of "warm" and approaching "hot," yesterday topping off at 113 degrees. It's the time of year I stop drinking regular spring water and have to drink electrolyte-infused water to replace the sweat I lose during the days and nights. An impotent rage hangs above the city, fuses and tempers are short, the cows start lunging or charging, and puppies lie panting helplessly in unworldly cute piles. Needless to say I will be leaving soon, though my tabla classes remain cool beneath several stories of stone buildings in a fan-cooled room. A back-up battery becomes important at this time of the year with the interspersed electricity blackouts, and people who store their well water in black containers on the roof (i.e. everyone) have to wait until 11pm before the water isn't scalding hot to take their evening showers. Without at least three cold showers a day and dependable electricity supply Varanasi is a nightmare from May onwards. That gives me roughly ten days to book a train to the nearest Himalaya hill station and take advantage of all the tabla teaching I can in the next week - though my fingers are already starting to rebel and droop as I succumb to the relentless heat. "Da, tin, tin, da, da tin, tin, DA!"

Thought for the Day

2009-04-19T23:45:00.000-07:00

"According to the Buddhist scriptures, hell is located on the other side of the earth on a spot directly opposite Bodhgaya - the town in India where the Buddha became enlightened. According to modern maps, that corresponds to America. The future of Tibetan Buddhism seems most assured in hell - there are more Americans in this lecture than I've seen in the rest of India put together."

-Holy Cow!, Sara MacDonald

Ten Minute March

2009-04-15T03:47:00.001-07:00

I mentioned before that Varanasi is not easily captured by words, but I realized as I walked through a cloud of chili smoke that made my eyes smolder and stream in a familiar damp little alleyway, that I could at least use words to convey some of my feelings here. So I will simply describe, with little embellishment, my walk across town to my tabla lesson each morning.

The first sensation of "otherness" comes with my interaction with orange clad sadhus coming from their Ganga bath with sandalwood paste smeared across their foreheads, where a simple touch to the heart will gain a deep and respectful nod of the head and "namaste." Following the labrinth through shops and tea stalls, the next interaction comes in the form of government apparatus, where the occassional row of six or seven police sitting chewing paan (and projecting a thin line of the red juice on a wall across the walkway) hold their semi-automatic rifles as they tug at the tighter areas of their uniforms. This first stretch is still in the quiet and cooler quarters before the heat of the main road hits me like a fist, and then all erupts. Muslim women clad head to toe in black in the stiffling heat crowd into the scandalous lingerie shops, wedding processions march by somberly with the terrified bride and groom sweating through their costumes. People, rickshaws, bicycles, vendors, and processions buzz like bees in the intense heat, and I find myself crossing the road to get back into the shade. Even still after so many trips to this city I think to myself on this particular walk every morning, "holy shit, I'm in India."

Past the South Indian temple I find myself swiftly weaving in and out of waddling South Indian women back amongst the darkended cobblestone lanes. Picture me yelling, "Side! Side!" to a line of thirty-plus saried matriarchs to get them to give this Westerner with an agenda some space, and even when these non-locals realize their social faux pas and step to the side, I am weary of small children, motorcycles, or large, horned cows coming in the opposite direction and looking for similar openings. The motorcycles often balance three or more young boys dressed straight from a scene from Saturday Night Fever, who wiggle their eyebrows at me suggestively as I try to stifle a good laugh at their ill-timed coifs. Otherwise entire families balance babies and children on the handlebars, but the no matter who the drivers are, they always give the horn a nice blare right as they pass milimeters to the side of me. "Hello, madame!"

Garbage collectors reach into the filthy open sewage, beat cows aways from piles of plastic, and dump the dripping rubbish into rickety, metal wheelbarrows that could severe a toe or two if not careful. Also yelling, "Side! Side jaiye!" these trash collectors join the fray of other stick-like people pushing or pulling inhuman amounts of goods on other rickety carts that fill the narrow passageways and threaten canine tails as well as the aforementioned toes. The dogs are either asleep, dead to the world, amid the fray, or nursing one to six yelping puppies that charge for their mother's teats which are practically dragging on the ground. At this point past the vegetable market, I may walk through another waft of smoke or steam, sometimes a chai stall, boiling milk (for curd), spices and chilis for samosas, or just another old man or woman puffing endlessly on a bidi. As I weave in and out, the sounds of bells and sweet chimes comes closer, then land upon me, and recede as I approach either another temple with bells or (more often) a horrible soundsystem blaring sappy Bollywood love songs (Indians are suckers for mellowdrama) or an upbeat techno version of some ancient Indian mantra. The scenery rotates, but all are regulars on my daily excursion across town.

Along the whole way are the vendors, some tucked into nooks and crannies so small and dark you never see anything but an outline of the voice's owner, but most shopkeepers stand outside like peacocks, chests puffed, proudly displaying silks, jewels, or toiletries outside of their bursting stalls. "Something, madame, for the beautiful lady?" "Yes, I am here!" or, just as often, "Hashopiumbrownwhisky?" The city is ripped by deals in the Indian and tourist markets, and of course the black market thrives and is run by the well-known Varanasi mafia who have their hands in seemingly every bit of business in some way or another. But I walk on, knowing that certain temple doors are shut to sell some gullible tourist cheap heroin, opium, cocaine, or maybe hash that is cut with half cow dung or dhup (incense). Even the milk peddler adds about 70% water to his white jug so as to beef up profits - no one is safe from a scam.

Finally on the last little stretch of path before my oasis of music and refreshing coolness, the perfume wallah nods solemnly with a "namaste" as I round the bend, and the familiar forms of a leper I see everyday and lady with a small bundle in her arms beg, "Money?" as I brush past and keep my pace moving forward. Finally I am in the small shop that houses my daily lessons, and Muna (my teacher) without fail greets me with a chai as the familiar bunch of swamis and musicians who stream in and out grunt their hellos, namastes, and occasionally click with their approval at my slow improvement. It is an hour of highly enjoyable and oft-interrupted tabla lesson on the cushioned floor before my trip back through the bedlam.

Endless Varanasi

2009-04-08T01:55:00.000-07:00

Because Varanasi is beyond words, my blog is suffering for lack of verbosity and will probably continue to be afflicted for the next couple of weeks. Not that my mind is not running, it is (as always), but my senses often take over as I try to absorb the alleyways full to the brim of colors, sounds and smells that assault my brain patterns and lay my thoughts, worries and preoccupations to rest. More than any other place in India I feel a deepening sense of peace as an ancient pace takes over my stride, allowing me to breathe deeper and relax my mind. Even as I write this, a band of men shouting, "Ram, Ram, Satya Hain!" (God, God, God is Truth!) stream by with a corpse hoisted on their shoulders, all within reach of this keyboard, spectator, and screen. I guess words defy the experience, so in their place I humbly offer pictures and (hopefully) a sense of immutable peace that flows constantly from this place on earth.

Spring Chicken

2009-04-06T02:05:00.000-07:00

Is there any greater feeling than learning a new skill? To realize again for the millionth time that we don't already know everything that we will know by the time we are buried (or burned)? I have taken up the tabla, finally taking my friend Muna's advice and realizing that if I start today then in five years I will be five years better than I am now. He told me that the first time five years ago. So... I can feel the strain of new synopsis firing as I try and coordinate left and right, feeling propelled back to math class in third grade or perhaps the first time I stepped on a skateboard, which is a wonderful feeling. Nothing like a new skill to make me feel young again (don't laugh, mom, sadly it's true). Maybe with all this mortality talk you can tell that I'm in Varanasi again, and as the hot season rings in at a mere 40 degrees C (104 degrees F, remember it's only April) the bodies start piling up. Not enough wood for the dead, so two or three empty human shells are stacked on each pyre and the fires blaze through the night. Depressing for some, maybe, but I'm just about to turn 26 this week and I'm learning a new skill, keeping death and boredom at bay. Feeling like a spring chicken in this ancient abode.

Waiting Compartment (Ladies)

2009-04-03T01:14:00.000-07:00

Like a tree bringing water from its roots to its leaves, I have been sucked back up into north India as a most natural course of action. After spending three nights on a train, a full day in the Hyderabad train station and one in the sleeper compartment squashed in with eight Indian men, I have been spit out on the other side back in one of my favorite locations: Varanasi. Every once in awhile I would peek down from my upper berth spot to witness the cocauphany of vendors yelling "chai, chai" (some loud enough to vibrate the pages in my book) and "veg cutlet," or to hear the jingling of little girls' anklets and see ticketless sadhus (holy men) lying on the floor and snoring vigorously, but mostly I tuned out on the train and rocked with the railroad ties.

In Hyderabad I had a mere twelve hour layover before my train came, and I was more than happy to see a sign that said "Waiting Compartment (Ladies)" in the station. Despite the fact that I looked at the "How to Save Your Life from a Moving Train" poster a thousand times (the last frame of twelve showing a man superimposed on the side of a train like Spiderman, with the comical final step: "Save the Life") it was maybe the shortest twelve hours of my life, with women of all castes and creeds coming up to chat with me in a refuge from the outside male-dominated India. Of course, Indian men do whatever they please, so there were a few husbands tending to their wives and children, but thankfully not the gawking type who hold hands, unconsciously grope their balls and stare unapologetically with gaping mouths. So I was happy to be away from the heat, intensity, and male attention for at least a few hours. Women in full black burkahs would enter from the oppressive heat, sweating and lifting their masks to fan each other, their deep brown eyes a mirror of my own and reflecting irritated but radiant smiles. One group of such women bombarded me with their babies, husbands' names, "where are you going"s, and finally "what are your qualifications?" I posed happily with them, me in a t-shirt and short pants and them in full purdah, while they clicked photos with each other's cell phone cameras.

One Hindu woman came up to me and asked me how to deal with the issue of child pregnancy and HIV awareness among teenagers. She was a school teacher in a village outside of Segundabad, and she was really struggling with these issues. I told her we learned about sex in school and from our parents, and as long as it was taboo to talk about in either place, I feel like these problems will continue to persist. I told her that we were taught that sex is a responsibility, that it is a natural, scientific fact that kids want to have sex after puberty, and that education (of women, especially) is huge. She confided that she had two teenagers, one a 17 year-old girl and a 19 year-old boy with a girlfriend, so the problem was more personal. Her husband said they shouldn't talk about sex before marriage so as not to encourage it, but she (probably rightfully) had her concerns. It was refreshing to have such an open conversation with an educated woman who works with youth.

She then surprised me by hesitantly changing the topic to: "and in your country, what do people do when they are married but have sexual feelings for other people? It's wrong, isn't it?" Sensing this was also a personal question and hoping that it didn't involve her husband with someone else, I gave her a general answer about divorce in our country and how that is a common way to avoid natural changes in affection. She surprised me again, and started telling me that this trip was not only for business, but actually a clandestine getaway with her lover of two years - the first they had dared to take. Her eyes welled with tears, and she said the village would stone her if they ever found out, and that she was terrified. I was shocked, Hindu women are never usually so forward, especially with a perfect stranger. Apparently this raggamuffin in the corner could provide her with some liberal viewpoints and a disinterested perspective (though I was very interested and held her hand to comfort her), and at one point she said, "it's like you are God, I just want to tell you everything!" I tried to side-step that one as best I could, thinking, "I'm not even a therapist or social worker equipped to deal with such issues, much less God!" To complicate matters more, her lover is a Christian and she is a Hindu, bringing together the wrath of two moral systems upon their small love affair. She assured me that she loved her husband and her children, and that "her friend" felt the same about his wife and kids, but they couldn't help their feelings for each other.

I listened to her with rapt attention, mostly surprised by such a new experience in this "Waiting Compartment (Ladies)." I finally told her that I had no answers for her, that I absolutely do not believe in heaven and hell, and that society always lags a little behind the human heart and she could only find her answers there. She looked over at a couple of Indian Christian nuns on the other side of the room, and whispered "if I told them, they'd give me a big slap!" We both laughed at that, sure myself that I deserved a couple of slaps from a nun for all of my own sins against the Christian doctrine, and then it was time. Terrified and thankful, she kissed me (another surprise) and left with tears streaming down her face to catch her train. What does one do in a society that does not allow for divorce, that silences its women, and that arranges its marriages? This little god does not know, but I know that I will keep that woman in my thoughts and prayers.

I got back on the train, and sat near a bunch of giggling, beautiful young women who immediately started up a conversation with me. A large man waddled over, took his place (shooing several away), and acted as interpreter of their almost perfect English. Me: "What are you studying?" Girls: "Business, right now." Fat man: "They are studying business!" Me: (nodding at the man in false appreciation) "Where is your school?" Girls: "Hyderabad" Fat man: "Their school is in Hyderabad!" Well, my "Waiting Compartment (Ladies)" time was over, but alas, I am in India. So many lives buzz around each other here, drama to absolute sky, and I have to say I enjoyed my little stint as a false diety in the corner for twelve hours.

Happy in Hampi

2009-03-30T00:28:00.001-07:00

I am still in Hampi, somehow finding it difficult to lift my legs and travel on from here. A river runs through the town, and on "the other side" (for Rs.10 you can just take a boat across the way) I have met a wonderful group of international artistic-traveling-Hampi-loving people. It's been a relaxed week, for sure, making the small trek up to the reservoir to soak our bodies and relieve the oppressive heat each day through the wonderland of rock formations - singing our praises in all sorts of languages. Hampi is just an easy place to stay... the beauty alone can hold the eye, and thousands of ruins and a nice cool (clean) lake where you can cool your simmering bones makes it a unique spot in the Indian subcontinent. I will definitely be back.

Holy Hampi

2009-03-25T07:40:00.000-07:00

Hampi is a wild place, situated between ancient ruins and breathtaking feats of nature. Enormous rocks balance precariously on top of one another for as far as the eye can see, each stone the size of a house, at least. Amid these rocky enclaves exist a vast array of ruins and excavation sites geared toward uncovering remnants of the Vijayanagara empire, which thrived from 1336 to 1565. It was finally destroyed by invading Muslim sultans, and sadly many of the intricate rock carvings have been destroyed partially, if not totally, because they were considered to be blasphemous idols by the Muslim conquerers. Still, many of the statues remain standing, the elephant god Ganesh having sacrificed his trunk in a thousand cases, the goddesses Lakshmi and Saraswati dance headless without their breasts, and other various gods survived to be forever amputees, missing one or several arms which at one point bore swords, coins, and snakes. But the kingdom was too large to be totally destroyed, and the natural beauty only adds to the awe of an archaelogical dream.

Hampi is sometimes identified with the Vanara, or monkey kingdom mentioned in the sacred text, the Ramayana. The very first historical settlements of the area date back to 1 BCE, though the greater temples, bath houses, elephant stables, and palaces came much later. The Hindu kingdoms thrived on the banks of the mighty Tungabhadra river, and were protected by the rocky hills on all sides. Picking my way through, around and over the countryside, I could easily transport myself to a time when the maharajas ruled. The surrounding villagers have been hired to excavate many of the ruins, an attempt by the Indian government to deter looting. The town of Hampi is very small and quiet, the hub of a World Heritage Site and a lot of appreciative visitors who stay longer than their intended two days.

The boat with eight people in it on the left gives some reference for the size of the boulders.

One of many temples...

...wherever you go, there you are. Temples as far as the eye can see.

Some too bizarre to comprehend.

What relics will be left of our civilization? Toasters and televisions?

Another defaced idol carved from an enormous stone.

These are the stables where the maharajas kept their battle elephants. Each stall is separate and blissfully cool inside.

Here are the initial steps leading out of town that lead to valley after valley of ruins.

An ancient public bath to cut the relentless heat.

Sunset over the town of Hampi.

Leaving Goa

2009-03-24T10:27:00.000-07:00

The time has come to pack up my bags and move inland, away from the coast and oh-so-easy beach lifestyle. As I said before, I am so glad I visited this last colonial stand, run by the Portugese until 1961 before becoming India's twenty-fifth state in 1987. It's been refreshing to observe the Goan culture which differs from it's neighbors in slight but noticeable ways. Women wear skirts instead of saris, stoic white churches rise from the palms, and some of the older generation still speak Portugese. At times I felt I wasn't in India anymore at all, which is maybe why so many people like it, but I definitely felt pulled in by the allure of its arid climate, rugged landscape and lack of pushy people.

Strangely enough, Goa looks a lot like how I imagine the Portugese coast to look like, and in some areas the landscape and ecosystems remind me a lot of California. I immediately noticed avocado and guacamole on the menus (though not in season right now, damnit!) and felt the relaxed atmosphere in a state much drier (and browner) than Kerala at this point in the season. I could almost imagine temperate live oak in place of the cashew farms that line the small bi-ways that connect the beaches. A couple times I even felt that I was in Occidental or some small northern Californian town, with a warm breeze and red dirt overwhelming my senses. However, Goa attracts a ton of international people each year, and part of me has been yearning to get back to the India I know - with crowded streets, chai stalls, and veg thali everywhere you go.

That's not to say it wasn't hard to leave. I definitely had second thoughts as I packed my bag at 5:30am to the sound of breaking waves to hop on a bus and an eight hour train ride to Hampi, in Karnataka. The travel was long, dry, and hot, but I arrived here this afternoon to be greeted by Flinstones-style rocks teetering on top of one another, happy to have broken the lolling pace of the beach (which really does have a hypnotic effect) and to be traveling again. I will spend the next few days meandering the ruins of an empire that fell around the same time the Portugese arrived on the Western coast in the early 1500's. The now empty elephant stables and enormous palaces bear testament to the grandeur and excess of the maharajas long before western colonialism made it mark, and the ruins of a spectacular empire will take at least a few days to pick through in this surreal landscape.

Ecofarm near Agonda, Goa

2009-03-24T09:31:00.000-07:00

I saw a hand-painted sign that said "Ecofarm 1km --->"on the side of the road between Palolem and Agonda beach. I followed the minor scrawl and passed through a small village only to stumble on a gorgeous, terraced organic farm that sustains Bhakti Kutir, a yoga center in Palolem. They take volunteers, although right now is the dry season and there isn't any water left in the well, so most of the work right now would consist of landscaping and seed collection. Thought I'd mention it here if anyone is interested in work exchange and/or organic farming. You get to stay in the tree house overlooking the tomatoes and papaya and play with Sangita and her son :)

Going, Going, Goa

2009-03-21T23:54:00.000-07:00

For years I have pegged Goa in my mind as a place to avoid, sort of the Cabo of India, swamped with tourists seeking all-night parties with lots of drugs in a pseudo raver/ex-hippie scene. Maybe because I'm in the south of Goa in Palolem (the north is notoriously more more of a party scene) or maybe because it's the tail end of the tourist season here, but I'm finding I couldn't have been further from the truth. The coast is lined with beautiful little inlets and islands, and the beaches are practically empty. The towns are much less developed than those along the Keralan coast, with practically indistinguishable makeshift palm huts acting the roles of hotel room, bar, dance floor, and lovely restaurants with really good food and reclining cushions for the small population of tourists who are here.

Just to the south of Palolem there exists an even mellower and more beautiful beach called Patnem. Patnem is less developed, intermixed with funky Bolinas-style hippie huts and classic Indian fishing villages - I think this is where many people come to live and relax, with an occasional party. There is a sound ordinance, so after 11pm all party-goers don headphones that are linked to the DJs table and you dance with headphones on. I guess it's a good (if not strange) concept, if you meet a cutie you can just lose the headphones and actually have a conversation. But mostly I've been enjoying my days of walking through these coastal villages that separate the beaches and picking my way through small, semi-tropical tidepools. Tidepooling in India, add that to the list of new experiences I've had on this trip! You don't have to spend a single rupee to enjoy an entire day, and it's nice to just feel like I can soak up some more natural elements of India before I return to the pulsing, heaving and (by now) sweating masses of people compressed in the cities.

All in all, this whole area is pretty undeveloped and low-key, and it's actually been a much more enjoyable experience than the more resorty (is that a word? yes!) areas that I visited in Kerala. There are definitely plenty of tourist amenities, such as scooters for Rs.200/- ($4) per day to ride and explore more of the coastline and villages, but they are not overstated or pushy at all. And despite being the "end of season" because of the heat, a pleasantly cool breeze keeps the entire area at comfortable and pretty ideal temperature most of the time. And the beer is cold! In a couple of days I'll go to Hampi to see the incredible ruins there, and I'm wishing I could somehow bottle this sea breaze to bring inland with me. Ultimately I'm really glad I got over myself to visit this part of India, and contrary to all my previous assumptions I am really loving Goa.

Varkala, Kerala

2009-03-17T05:21:00.000-07:00

I have spent the past several days in a small town of Varkala, perched on the cliffside of the Arabian sea. Suffice to say, the location is mindnumbingly beautiful, a beauty I suspect continues to stretch along the coastline from here to Mumbai (Bombay). After eleven days of yoga enclosed within an ashram, it feels good and strange to re-emerge in the outside world - if one can call Varkala the "outside world." Luckily I have some fellow ashramites to keep me company during my reinstated morning coffee ritual (oops!) and down on the beach under our shade umbrellas... and my friend Carlos even found a short board to paddle out into the endless and empty line-ups of the full moon swell.

I don't have much to report as I glide through the days of beach relaxation, impervious to the coconut venders and idyllic surroundings. The state of floating consciousness can be attributed as much to yogic bliss as to my pure mental resistence to relaxation after working in the north. Is this the same India that I arrived in? Can Bihar and Kerala possibly exist in the same subcontinent? It's hard to believe, and a familiar tug of "social responsibility" juxtoposed with personal health and relaxation work at the corners of my mind. The age old battle of inward and outward expression is beginning to play with me as days slip through my fingers, and I can't help but wonder, "what is wrong with me? Relax!" At least my meditation and yoga have helped me slow my mind down, allowing me to take the space to process the past few months and simultaneously enjoy my infinitely mellow surroundings.

But I think that the reasoning for my discomfort (or at least lack of fulfillment) in paradise is a more positive outcome than the guilt of privilege or the nagging image of children I've come to love in Bihar. Working with children in India, developing loan products for rural areas, and even learning a new language feels fulfilling in terms of satisfying my desire to find meaningful work in this world that challenges my mind and creativity. I'm taking my angst in paradise - however uncomfortable and neurotic as it may feel - as a good sign that possibly I've found solid path to follow for the time being. That's what I'd like to believe, at least, and I've even given up my more morose habits (such as compulsively checking on the political situation in Pakistan) in favor of morning coffee, breathing deeply, and overlooking the sea. It is well-worn terrain for me: finding the balance in my life between personal fulfilment and the "status-of-the-world" compulsion. In any case, the true test will be moving on to Goa where there is a strong ex-pat and party contingent. I will go to Goa in a couple of days (to the south, which will be more relaxed) and continue to enjoy the ocean and this coastline as I slowly head back north, though I'm coming to realize that checking out of the world and living on a tropical beach, while tempting, isn't the fate for me.

Kerala Photos

2009-03-14T03:39:00.000-07:00

Sivananda Ashram, Kerala

2009-03-10T23:41:00.000-07:00

Where should one go to learn or practice yoga? Well, for one, being in India certainly helps with the beautiful bajans (hymns), Sanksrit pronunciation, and availability of skilled harmonium, sitar, and tabla players in the birthplace of yogic philosophy. Here in the jungles of Kerala I have finally made it to the Sivananda Ashram, located on the edge of an animal reserve and miles of untouched forest next to the Neyyar Dam. It is the perfect place to practice and learn about this complex science we call yoga. As I bend my legs and arms in all sorts of contortions, I can even hear lions roaring from across the lake where they have a lion park. I know, I know, I should be looking for tigers in India, not lions, but it does help to hold the posture a little longer to hear the ferocious cry of the King of the Jungle just when you think you can't bear the pain a second longer.

The schedule is rigorous but allows for time to read, chat with other travellers, and relax your sore muscles. For only Rs.550/- per day (about $11 USD) I am staying in a room that looks out over rainforest with my roomate, Nicki, from Hawaii. We wake up at 6am for meditation and satsang (prayer), then have chai, of course, then go to the first two-hour yoga lesson, breakfast, karma yoga (chores), a couple hours for break on the beautifully landscaped premises, lecture, another two-hour yoga session, dinner, and then night prayer. All for a mere $11. The teachers are rotating to provide different experiences, and they offer beginning and intermediate classes. Apart from the amazing opportunity to spend four hours a day being guided through the tricky terrain of yogic postures and spiritual crisis, it's incredibly entertaining to do so with people from around the world. One older Englishman put it this way, "If you would have told me I'd be doing yoger in an arshram in India five years ago, I'da snubbed out my cigarette, put my whiskey to the side, made a fist and socked yer in the eye!" And my jaw almost fell off when the 80 year-old African-American lady in front of my put her legs behind her head - encouraging or utterly discouraging? I'm still not quite sure. The people here are fun and well-travelled, the swamis are approachable, and every few nights the ashram hosts incredible cultural shows with special songs, dance, even martial arts from Kerala.

Outside the ashram, Kerala is just as beautiful as people say it is. It is a strange place in India, the only Socialist state in the union. Wherever you go, you see the sickle & hammer and churches. Jesus and Socialism? An interesting mix, for sure, but it creates the backdrop for this lush landscape that also boasts the highest literacy rates in the world. I haven't learned much or even seen much of this state yet - I've spent the last eleven days in the ashram - but I'm looking forward to lighting out and practicing my new skills along the tropical coastline. I may try and sample some tea from the beautiful hill stations perched along the Western Ghats if I can pull myself out of the ocean long enough. Either way, I'll definitely be going deeper into the nearly impossible poses I've been learning from Swami Sivananda's legacy, and making sure to breathe... breathe... breathe.

Hi-Tech, High-Rise, Hy-derabad

2009-02-26T05:23:00.000-08:00

From Udaipur to Hyderabad, it's been a jet-set week for me. Within a single week I saw the Himalayas and spent a couple of days in the almost Southeast Asian-esque environment of Assam, where people from the mountains and lowlands meet and speak the totally foreign language (to me) of Assamese. From there I spent a single night back in Delhi, only to take an overnight bus with my friend Pooja to visit her joint family in Jaipur, Rajastan. We spent the first day paying homage to her family's guru-ji in his incredibly peaceful and beautiful ashram under the trees, in the sand - an oasis amid the dusty, desert city. After receiving darshan (blessing of his presence and words) from him we went to the Shiva temple which was equally beautiful. Peacocks sat in the enormous bodhi trees as pilgrims streamed in and out of the ornate and colorful shrine. Mustachioed men dawning turbans and curly-toed shoes can be seen driving camels (or sometimes elephants) through packed streets. Amid the chaos, women in the most beautiful yellow and red saris thread through the traffic, hiding their faces and ducking the sun on their way to temples and colorful markets. The desert is a world unto itself.

In Jaipur, Pooja's grandparents reside over four sons and their four wives, and all of the couples' children in one house. 17 in all, and I made the 18th member of the lively and joyful bunch. After two quick days of ultimate treatment I got on an overnight train again, stuffed my all-too-long American legs onto the upper sleeper birth, and woke up in Udaipur. And now from cushioned belfries overlooking palaces and desert splendor I hopped a plane, spent a quick layover in Mumbai (after our descending plane practically ripped tin rooftops from the vast and cascading shanties), and ended up here, where electronic billboards and high-rise hotels lick the skyline. Two days is not enough to learn the language or the script of yet another Indian language, Telagu, so I will continue south with my now non-useful Hindi to Kerala for a two week yoga retreat. Despite the rising temperatures of this quickly hottening continent, I am really looking forward to some time in the tropics to unwind, unloose, and relax. I had the best masala dosa of my entire life today, which really got me excited to spend some time in the South (I LOVE dosas) even though I will be crippled again by language barriers. But so it goes in a country with as many diversities as India, only a handful of which I have seen during this last week, and I will certainly be sampling all varieties of masala dosas and the famously spicy foods of South India while enjoying a whole other aspect of this country that I have never seen before. That is, after yoga, of course.

Udaipur

2009-02-24T02:49:00.000-08:00

Am I in heaven? No, I am in Udaipur, a hill station in the south of Rajastan. I have wanted to visit this city known as the "Venice of the East" for years now, and almost immediately fell in love with its charm and beauty. I spent the whole day yesterday with my guide, Mustafa, who took me around the city in his mighty rickshaw to hidden gardens with painted walls and fountains, Hindu tombs that match Roman ruins in spectacular beauty, Jain temples that corrupt the eye with volumptuous women in all sorts of white-marble poses, and palaces rising from the middle of lakes in a desert city that somehow resisted the Mughal Empire. Udaipur seems like a mirage to the well-worn traveler, and has quickly and easily become on of my favorite places in India. The streets are small like those in Varanasi, and as you solve the riddle of your own destination within its tangled alleyways, sudden marble stairways invite you off the not-yet-but-soon-too-hot streets into cool Hindu temples that smell sweet with Indian incense and perfumes. What's not to love? It will be a quick couple of days in this magical place, but I am happy I got to finally see this elegant and irrestibible city.

Assam

2009-02-19T23:05:00.000-08:00

This week I went to the Northeast state of Assam. If you look at a map of India, you find a funny offshoot of land that is almost separate from the rest of the country perched between Bhutan, China, and Burma above Bangladesh. In many ways, the states also known as "the seven sisters" are a world apart from the rest of India. Oil-rich Assam became a tea producer during British colonial rule, and many Indians from the northern states migrated to work in the tea fields. In terms of physical characteristics, the original inhabitants of the the area are much closer to their Bhutanese or Tibetan neighbors. After four generations of Indian settlement, a spectrum of all races exist in this area as a testament to the colonial history. The tea fields remain functioning and intact, and plantation after plantation of shade-grown tea can be seen wherever you go in this lush and sub-tropical area.

( Here I am meeting with with two borrowers -the woman in blue and the man on the far left- who have taken out loans for their daughters. The other three men live in the house where our office is located. The father told me they are fourth generation, originally from Uttar Pradesh, whose family came to work on tea plantations. Both husband and wife are well-educated and they run a computer education center and Drishtee Loan Office out of their home. Below is another kiosk in a more rural setting. )

The plains of Assam are surrounded by the largest mountains in the world, and the plane ride past the Himalayas was spectacular. Once you land, the pleasant sub-tropical climate is surprising as the green of palm leaves and banana trees meet the eye. Being situated in such a place in the world - between Tibet (China), Burma, Bhutan, and Bangladesh is not without it's problems. The open borders on all sides, the disputed land in the north in Arunchal Pradesh (China has encroached before), and such proximity with Bangladesh which, not too long ago was East Pakistan, has created a breeding ground for terrorist activity. It is said that the ISI (the Pakistani CIA) is training internal militants in the region to weaken the India's focus on the Pakistani border in the west. Pakistan still hasn't forgotten that India supported Bangladesh's independence in a fierce battle in 1971, and Pakistani intelligence is working in the arms trade with China to destabilize the precarious region. It is such a shame that such a incredibly beautiful place in the world has been scarred by the battles for territories between India and Pakistan.

Despite the violence in some of its regions, our program in Assam is running the best out of all of our locations. The borrowers are repaying on time, the applications are properly filled, and I met an incredibly hospitable and intelligent Drishtee team while I was there. All in all I was charmed by the people in Assam and hope that we can continue to lend in such a region. The language is different, the transportation distance is far, but the people were warm, well-educated, and hard-working in terms of our student loans. The tea wasn't so bad either.

मेहेंदी (Henna) Party

2009-02-15T06:23:00.000-08:00

The night before the wedding, an Indian bride-to-be has an all-night extravaganza with all of her closest friends and women family members. Everyone has their hands decorated with henna, with the bride getting the ultimate job all the way up her arms and legs. My friend, Carol, and I ate delicious tandoori paneer, danced all night to Bollywood beats, and were treated like family as we celebrated this beautiful tradition.

Valentine's Day in India

2009-02-13T22:36:00.000-08:00

Yes, the dreaded holiday is coming up, though as I find myself single and in a foreign country I'm not feeling too lame or heart-broken not having a date. Rather, I thought I'd share the big national debate in India since mid-January over "pub culture." I have already written about Islamic extremists, which I know wasn't entirely necessary as an American to fan the flame of an all-out global hate campain. It was meant more as a commentary on my own shortcomings as a politically correct liberal, so I will continue in that vein. The theme was certainly not meant to limit to Islam the quality which I can't stand most about every religion, and perhaps about humanity; fundamentalism. As much as the spread of Islamic law is a great concern to me, the idea that we could have a president (or, ahem, vice presidential candidate) that believes in End of Days or some kind of innevitable Armaggedon leading international politics is equally terrifying and infuriating. Isn't there something mentioned somewhere about separation between church and state in the United States Constitution?

But I digress. Hindus have not escaped the illness of fundamentalism either (being human, albeit reincarnations of cows and horses), which was most recently manifested as fanatical men entering pubs and beating and molesting women who were having drinks in Mangalore. This made national news and began a national debate about "what is Indian?" The campain against what is being referred to as "pub culture" is being led by Pramod Muthalik and his political party, the Shri Rama Seve. Right wing extremists, limited to a small group of religious fanatics, right? Wrong. The Chief Minister of Rajastan and many Cabinet members in Congress have claimed that women drinking is against Indian culture, and that "pub culture" is another Western value like "love marriage" that should be eliminated. What about the other imports that have led to India's emergence as an international powerhouse? Well, India can keep those. A woman can work at a call center all day, recieve an education abroad, wear jeans and a t-shirt and speak perfect English as a Mac help assistant, but god forbid she grabs a drink with her friends after work. The irony is endless.

Let's begin with the ridiculous question of "what is Indian?" Just like all such questions, the answers are vast, especially in a country with over 300 languages. But what I admire most about India (which has nothing to do with the identity of its most basic quality, but rather provides a reason for the country's countless identities) is the level of inclusion and assimilation within Indian culture that has allowed "Indian culture" to thrive, morph, and continue to exist after tens of thousands of years and innumerable conquests. In many households, families will place pictures of Jesus and Buddha alongside Ram and Krishna with no qualms. These rishis, or seers, have a place in the collective betterment of humanity, and are seen by many as great souls which of course can be included in morning pooja. Their pictures endure the same sweep of the ritual incense and sometimes smudges of red chalk, which reflects a level of tolerance and inclusion that makes it even remotely possible for 1.1 billion people to live in a country a third the size of the US. Americans would be at each other's throats, but here Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, Hindus, Christians, and Jews live side by side, and most often peacefully. There is tension, no question, and there are very serious issues and hate crimes, but given the ratios and sheer number of people occupying this space, one can't help but marvel at the level of cooperation it takes for India to tick. I have often heard of India referred to as an elephant, rather than as a sleek tiger like of one of its well known neighbors, that somehow charges through the battlefield towards the future; blundering and seemingly out of control, but intact.

So when I see intolerant men barging into clubs and beating women in the name of preserving "Indian culture," I can't help but shake my head. What about educated Indian women who are choosing to work, and a young generation increasingly looking towards the West? Are they not legitimately Indian? How are they responding? One woman has begun a campaign called "Consortium of Pub-going Loose and Forward Women," which is collecting and sending endless Valentine's Day gifts to Pramod Muthalik - from pink lingerie, cards, and flowers to condoms and kama sutra books. As a Western woman I had to laugh at the creativity of this response as tens of thousands of pink gifts have arrived from India and abroad at Muthalik's home. But I also know that the Shri Rama Sene are fanatics, and they will be out in the streets on Saturday. Holding hands has now been banned completely in the state of Rajastan (though men can hold hands with each other, and women, too), and on Valentine's Day there will be an army of angry men, painting couples' faces black and attacking those who are showing any type of affection or who are unmarried and walking together. This is a tightrope we walk these days, between fanaticism and tolerance, between religious freedom and zealotry, between feeling fearful or empowered. It is sad to me that Valentine's Day wears a mask of fear in India, with a few brave souls risking violence and harrassment for the right to do their own thing. Whatever I may feel about Valentine's Day, I do have one question for the extremists: In such a rich and complex society, how can any one person possibly claim to own and protect "Indian culture?"

Slumdog Millionaire

2009-02-11T01:13:00.000-08:00

I have been reluctant to join the fray leading up to the Academy Awards, but I'm tempted to at least put my two cents in for Slumdog Millionaire. I thoroughly enjoyed watching the film (though I found myself turning away at the more gruesome parts) and appreciated the art direction and approach into a hidden world of poverty. This movie has captured the wrath of enough Indian critics at this point, but as I sat in the air-conditioned mall in Delhi with rickshaw wallas and trash-collecting youth picking the parking lot "clean" outside, I watched my Western mind get taken for a rollercoaster ride. The filmmaker's attempts to reach out to the Indian audience with a proper Bollywood ending, appealing to utopian sensibilities that brainwash the masses in this country, fell short of my inner critic and apparently many in the Indian audience, but I had to appreciate that he tried and knew that the film would be controversial for Indian elite.

Though the film is dramatic, it also portrays a thousand truths. The beggar's mafia, child prostitution, Hindu-Muslim riots, police brutality, and all the little quirks (like paying for toilets in the slum and riding the tops of trains) do exist, and are heavily under-represented in Indian policy, not to mention in the international domain of trade and "economic growth." The characters were strong and not self-pitying, and I was glad that the film did not victimize the poor further than they have already been exploited. However, there is big money in poverty (as Slumdog has seen), and people in the slums of Bombay do not have dramatic, hair-raising music, cutting shots, and least of all happy endings...the smell alone is almost unbearable, never mind the cockroaches. In this way I was somewhat disappointed with the ending, as it played all too well into this utopian ideal that plagues India. Already you see chubby, white-skinned pictures of babies with bindis look down on the malnourished and stick-thin, black rickshaw pullers who slave all day to cut their own mafias a third of their pay. The most polluted, corpse-filled river in the world, the Ganges, is seen as a beaken of light and gate to freedom, though the Ganga plain remains a dark smeer across the Indian map with the country's highest rates of illiteracy, infant mortality, and poverty following its flow from Haridwar to Calcutta. And now our slumdog has the light-skinned beauty AND the millions of rupees when the lights go down. Damn it!

Apart from these things, is it simply enough sometimes to say I loved the film? I did, and am fully conscious that it hand fed my Western appetite and has stirred a good discussion. I had to laugh at Arundhati Roy's point that the actors were like kids with Harvard accents playing inner-city kids from Detroit, but what can I say? It was entertaining and educational. The slums of major Indian cities are not all of India, but they do exist and they are riveting. I watched the movie with Kunal, a close friend and Delhi resident, which provided for an intense couple of hours of grappling and discussion afterward and which alone made the film worth it to me. Though Slumdog Millionaire is heavily dramatized, I had to appreciate that Bombay's slums have captured the attention of the world and hope that something more than two hours of entertainment and several Academy Awards comes out of it, though it's certainly a start.

Partner Model

2009-02-09T17:50:00.000-08:00

Currently I am working with our company's one existing partner, the Drishtee Foundation, which has infrastructure in over 4,000 villages in Northern India. It would be impossible to run a microfinance institution (MFI) from San Francisco without the local knowledge and expertise of our partners. They provide the initial investment for infrastructure in thousands of villages, training for management and loan officers in the regions, information technologies such as call centers, computer databases and internet kiosks, financial information for all our borrowers, and monitoring and evaluation. The partnership model helps us avoid the inordinately high costs of starting from scratch and it is only through well-established partners that we can test our student loans in this initial pilot program before we start running this summer.

The way that Drishtee works is that they have kiosks in all of their operative villages, and they offer both entrepeneurial loans and computer courses in the villages. Through these kiosks we have introduced our student loans across four different states, which don't compete with their business loans, and as of January 5th we concluded our pilot program with almost 100 functioning loans in circuit. Now we just have to measure repayment rates, defaulted borrowers, and running costs while we collect borrower information through our BPO (busines process outsourcing) associates. Our BPOs are actually two educated village women, one in Haryana who speaks Hindi, and one in Assam who speaks Assamese, with cell phones. Borrowers call our 1-800 number, which reaches one of these women who then field questions and fill out applications for us. It's incredible to think what cell phone technology can and has achieved for remote, rural areas in the fields of health, finance, business, and emergencies - there are so many ways to utilize technologies that we often trivialize to benefit the poor. This is the basic structure of how our MFI runs. All of the interest gained from our loans effectively goes back to Drishtee to cover operational costs, so with enough loans in circuit the process both sustains itself and eventually becomes profitable for MFIs like Drishtee.

This week I went to Bihar to see one of our kiosk sites and visit Surat where Drishtee started its first village program. I had the privilege to accompany Drishtee CEO, Satyan Mishra, and his family while they organized a local election to create a village council. Satyan aims to make Surat a "model village" by offering jobs, education and health clinics in village locations to stem the massive amounts of economic refugees fleeing to urban slums (a global phenomenon known as "urbanization"). While India is a rapidly developing economic superpower with several "mega-cities" (Bombay, Delhi, and Calcutta all have populations over 20 million), the majority of the population still lives in village areas and it is impossible to imagine India without taking into account the hundred of millions living in rural settings. As farming becomes decreasingly economically sustainable, Drishtee is searching for ways to provide employment and services in village areas, catered to village needs. It is through these kiosks that we provide our student loans for primary and secondary school, and vocational training.

After a village council was selected, the elected members (who were all men, though a couple of women actually did run) sat around and made a list of priorities for developing their village. The three main topics on the table were education, health clinics, and agricultural development. Education won by a large margin, reflecting the understanding that proper health and agriculture (of which irrigation and fertilizers are two major outstanding issues) depend on an educated public. Once again I was confronted with my main question of this trip, how do we provide educational opportunities to the ultra poor? Satyan suggested we start a school that encompasses vocational training, knowledge courses, and secondary school (primary is offered for free by the government) for the local populations. Often times the girls are the first to drop out after primary school (4th grade) because the secondary schools are too far from home and it is dangerous to travel, or the family can only afford to educate one child which will inevitably be a son. But basically Satyan has suggested we treat the village as an aggregate unit, rather than as a group of individuals, which reflects more honestly the village mentality. We give one loan to the village for a school, which is the equivilent to 400 loans each year to students from poor families, and develop a curriculum that ensures a worthwhile investment.

As I have said many times, providing education in these areas is a great challenge, and I will continue to visit similar projects and wrestle with how to create the best loan structure. What is glaringly conspicuous is the lack of government provisions and infrastructure. Sometimes Bihar reminds me of the Wild West; with NGOs, landlords, Maoists, and politicians all carving out their piece of the pie, often leaving the people behind. But once you penetrate that veneer of "ignorance," you find parents, many of whom are illiterate, wanting something more for their children than they had for themselves, and they're willing to spend their meager earnings for it. I just have to find out how we can best honor that desire without further compromising people who are living a hand-to-mouth existence, and to provide the best service of all: opportunity.

Back to Bihar

2009-02-05T03:10:00.000-08:00

After only a week in Delhi, I had the opportunity to go back to Bihar to a city called Madhubani in the northern part of the state. We are offering our loans in this location and thinking to switch our call center to one of the villages in the area. I felt incredibly happy to be returning so soon through the beautiful electric green of the Ganga plain, painted with mustard and palm trees. Unending fields of tobacco and wheat greeted my thankful eyes as the train brought me back to this state that has captured a part of my corrupted heart. Appropriately, I have been reading a scathingly ironic book called "Bihar Is in the Eye of the Beholder" by Vijay Nambisan, his comical personal account as a Keralan man who spent a year and a half in the violent and impoverished state while his wife worked as a doctor in a Christian-run hospital. It is hard to make light of local mafias (which rule Bihar and its capital), Christian proselytizing, the political manipulations and rigged elections, and the curious story in the Patna newspaper of 80 skulls found in a local train station office, but Nambisan finds a way to expose some of Bihar's truths in an honest and sometimes hysterical way, and I found myself laughing out loud on several occasions. As he says at the end of one of his chapters, "it is unfortunate that to have a good opinion of Bihar you have to have lived there."

Well, I was already skeptical travelling on the new Garibrhat Express (literally "Poor Man's Train" running from Delhi to Bihar, if you had doubts about institutional disdain for the state), and perhaps I should have been a little more discreet than to read a book entitled "Bihar" on such a journey. As soon as I let the book drop on the seat beside me, an educated woman from Madhubani asked if she could take a look and see what I had been chuckling about. Oh no, a real Bihari wants to read this outsiders opinion, and from a videshi to boot! I handed the book over, somewhat reluctantly and clearly embarrassed, and made some lame comment about how comedy is hard to find in Bihar and I that I hoped it wasn't offensive. But within minutes she was laughing much harder than I had been, saying "It's true, it's all true!"

Needless to say, Bihar can be a characature of itself at times, and some of the stereotypes are painfully fitting. I was reading about election time in a chapter entitled "Laloo puts it to the touch," Laloo Prasad Yadav being the corrupt Chief Minister who served in prison during his own term, put his wife in charge of the state, and was re-elected upon release. What is he doing now? Why, he's the Minister of Railways for the Indian Central Government, a promotion! The chapter was about how the government seizes buses, taxis and private vehicles during election time, the anecdote went as follows:

"Influence too is an ephemeral thing, not there when you seek to grasp it. I was told at a Delhi cocktail party in February '98 that just two weeks earlier Laloo Prasad's family doctor had had his car seized by goondas whom he recognized as his most favoured client's hirelings. Confident that justice would be done, he went to 1 Anne Marg and poured out his troubles to Laloo. 'Acha, acha' Laloo is reported to have said, 'sab kuchh theek karva doonga' (I'll set everything right). He called for the goondas named and asked them if they had seized the car. They said yes, grinning all the while. 'Very well,' said Laloo turning to the doctor. 'You give them five lakhs and take back your car.' The goondas roared. With the grave yawning before him the doctor abandoned his practice and fled to Patna. I'm not entirely sure if this story is apocryphal, for by some strange fortuity a spice-trader in the small Kerala town we had moved to turned out to be the doctor's brother-in-law, and many months later he told us the same tale when he learned we had just come form Bihar. The doctor had settled in Bangalore, he said."

While I was in the middle of this paragraph, the train stopped for no apparent reason. I asked a couple of Muslim men, dressed in traditional shalwar-kamiz and knitted caps who were listening to prayers in Arabic on their cell phone, what was going on. They pointed to an Urdu newspaper and read the headline, "Pura Bihar Band Rahe" (All Bihar is Closed on Strike). "Elections," they said, and neither one of us could suppress a smile. The new Nitish Kumar government is certainly better than Laloo, though not much has changed in terms of how the state is run. The actual elections are not for another couple of months but the players are making their rounds. Elections are every five years, so to invest in a project that will take more than three years to achieve results is simply political suicide, so they stick to corruption and the circus (the latter of which was responsible for our stopped train). I just had to laugh at the serendipity and kick myself for the millionth time for loving this state and wanting to work here, but I do and I do.

A Word on Africa

2009-01-31T22:03:00.000-08:00

Simply by taking the time to ponder economic disparity and, more specifically, failure, my interest alone inevitably leads me back to the African continent time and time again. I just finished reading an incredible novel, "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, about a naive but fanatical Baptist family entering the Congo for mission work, only to unravel as a family and bear witness to the death of hope of a country at the time of Independence with the CIA-backed assassination of Patrice Lumumba. Africa is by far the poorest continent despite rich resources, and the reasons are both intricate and interwoven; from disease-prone climate to environmental patterns, from internal corruption to the unending tragedies of Western meddling during the last 400 years. What is the first step that the international community can do to begin repairing the damage that continues to undermine economic development in Africa? Debt forgiveness. And before we shake our heads at hopeless Africa, or dismiss it to pathetic Christian infomercials with pictures of children with flies in their eyes, it's time (having elected our first black president) to at least acknowledge the role the West has played in Africa's decline. Jeffrey Sachs, world-class economist, provides a tidy and succint description in his book "The End of Poverty":

"The outside world has pat answers concerning Africa's prolonged crisis. everything comes back, again and again, to corruption and misrule. Western officials, including the countless 'missions' of the IMF and World Bank to African countries, argue that Africa simply needs to behave itself better, to allow market forces to operate without interference by corrupt rulers. An American talk show host, Bill O'Reilly, reflected a common view when he recently declared that Africa 'is a corrupt continent; it's a continent in chaos. We can't deliver a lot of our systems that we send there. Money is stolen. Now when you have a situation like that, where governments don't really perform consistently, where there's just corruption everywhere, how can you cut through that?'

Western governments enforced draconian budget policies in Africa during the 1980s and 1990s. The IMF and World Bank virtually ran the economic policies of the debt-ridden continent, recommending regimens of budgetary belt tightening known technically as structural adjustment programs. These programs had little scientific merit and produced even fewer results. By the start of the twenty-first century Africa was poorer than during the late 1960s, when the IMF and World Bank had first arrived on the African scene, with disease, population growth, and environmental degradation spiraling out of control.

When it comes to charges of bad governance, the West should be a bit more circumspect. Little surpasses the western world in the cruelty and depredations that it has long imposed on Africa. Three centuries of slave trade, from around 1500 to the early 1800s, were followed by a century of brutal colonial rule. Far from lifting Africa economically, the colonial era left Africa bereft of educated citizens and leaders, basic infrastructure, and public health facilities. The borders of the newly independent states followed the arbitrary lines of the former empires, dividing ethnic groups, ecosystems, watersheds, and resource deposits in arbitrary ways.

As soon as the colonial period ended, Africa became a pawn in the cold war. Western cold warriors, and the operatives in the CIA and counterpart agencies in Europe, opposed African leaders who preached nationalism, sought aid from the Soviet Union, or demanded better terms on Western investments in African minerals and energy deposits. In 1960, as a demonstration of Western approaches to African independence, CIA and Belgian operatives assassinated the charismatic first prime minister of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, and installed the tyrant Mobutu Sese Seko in his stead. In the 1980s, the United States supported Jonas Savimbi in his violent insurrection against the government of Angola, on the grounds that Savimbi was an anticommunist, when in fact he was a violent and corrupt thug. The United States long backed the South African apartheid regime, and gave tacit support as that regime armed the violent Renamo insurrectionists in neighboring Mozambique. The CIA had its hand in the violent overthrow of President Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana in 1966. Indeed, almost every African political crisis - Sudan, Somalia, and a host of others - has a long history of Western meddling among its many causes.

The one thing that the West would not do, however, was invest in long-term African economic development. The die was cast in the 1960s, when senior U.S. policy makers decided that the United States would not support a Marshall Plan type of policy for Africa, even though such an effort was precisely what was needed to build the infrastructure for long-term growth. It was not that U.S. official rejected the diagnosis- they knew it was needed- but eh political leadership was not willing to pay the price."

Each page in the book of recent African history is like a punch in the stomach. For each one of the sentences above one could read and research thousands of heartbreaking eye-witness accounts and find the surviving perseverance of incredibly (by necessity) enduring people. Why do I bring this up now? I don't know, only I can't help but take the symbolism of Obama's race and what that has meant to the African-American community and extend it over the Atlantic ocean to a continent that is ravaged by disease, poverty, and war. As corny as this sounds, the man has infused me with hope for a different kind of approach to global politics, a renewed era of an international community, and it's about time we acknowledged the debt we owe Africans and not the other way around. As Jeff Sachs says in another chapter, "terrorism is a scourge that can be fought, but it cannot be eliminated, just as the world will not eliminate entirely the scourge of infectious disease... Almost three thousand people died needlessly and tragically at the World Trade Center on September 11; ten thousand Africans die needlessly and tragically every single day - and have died every single day since September 11- of AIDS, TB, and malaria. We need to keep September 11 in perspective, especially because the ten thousand daily deaths are preventable."

Hell in a Hand Basket

2009-01-30T04:46:00.000-08:00

Flung back into the modern world of Delhi, I feel like a country bumpkin coming off the farm. I wander through the chaotic traffic and stare at women driving cars, wearing t-shirts, and even speaking English! Truly Delhi is a world apart from Bihar, though somehow caste distinctions are always more visible when I'm here than with the landless living in feudal systems. Why? I'm not sure. Maybe because I have context here and can more easily relate my class and social status to the upper-caste Indians that surround me. Or maybe because I was surprised to find that the family I'm staying with had a pet cat, but wasn't surprised that they had a servant. A girl of maybe 16 years who has nice clothes but probably no money sits in the kitchen all day cooking and cleaning, and she is there still when the real children (one girl about the same age) come home from school in their uniforms. It is not uncommon for wealthy families in Delhi to have lower-caste child servants, and in fact it is often seen as a service to the child. I have learned to keep my mouth shut from past experiences, but it is disturbing to have a servant girl bring me my breakfast each morning while I watch the BBC news and listen to our first black president lead the country through financial wreckage. Then I leave the house to go work on student loans for out of school children (for which she, Madhu, would qualify), and make sure to stop in the kitchen to thank her and say goodbye for the day. One has to choose one's battles in India, like the owls I mentioned. Somehow things come around here as, incredibly, I was shocked the day after I wrote the owl blog to see an article in the Hindustan Times about a sting mission to free a bunch of endangered owls in Delhi! What a crazy world.

And what are we doing right now in this crazy world? While Wall Street big-shots pocket $18.4 billion in BONUSES (wow, what for?) and the opposition party in Zimbabwe joins a coalition with Robert Mugabe, while North Korea marches its Nazi armies and threatens South Korea, while Sri Lanka explodes in the south and I keep an eye over my shoulder to the Indo-Pak border to my north, what are we to think, where are we to look? Personally, this week I have my eye on the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. I have always avoided the event, world leaders meeting in a posh ski resort surrounded by supermodels and Angelina Jolie is not exactly my cup of tea. But this year the topics are very interesting indeed, and I think the demand for accountability is finally becoming more broad-based than angry liberal activists yelling in the streets and smelling like patchouli oil (which, for the record, was me). Finally, the people are being heard around the world. This financial crisis has made the world smaller, for better AND worse. The environment is being addressed. China and India are being recognized as emerging partners and superpowers as they post the only rising GDP among the most powerful nations in the world (btw, GDP or Gross Domestic Product does not represent the rising of all tides, as some might assume, but rather the average state incomes, a number which several billionaires can offset for an entire population, which can be misleading). The roles of smaller nations and their rights to economic and political sovereignty that has been discussed with maddening condescension by large economic powers is finally becoming a necessity. Many of the daily topics covered in Davos are posted at: http://www.bbc.com/davos.

To counteract the World Economic Forum is a much looser World Social Forum, with attendance swelling to the hundreds of thousands each year. This year (like most) the event is in Brazil, but I remember attending the week-long extravaganza in 2003 in Bombay. For a week I slept on the ground in an enormous tent with thousands of people, one of hundreds of tents, and each day there were at least 1,000 events to attend. I had a thick stack of papers listing all of the topics that were offered in small seminars for three, 3 hour sessions each day. I could go listen to fisherwomen from Goa, or people in Kerala whose wells had gone dry when Coca-Cola came and lowered all the water tables by 20 meters, learn about the practice of wife-burning in Gujurat and how many fall victim to the dowry system, or meet activists from Latin America, Africa, Cuba, the Phillipines, the Middle East, Europe and the rest of the world discuss solutions for our planet. The World Social Forum is the response of citizens, activists, and grass-roots leaders coming together to share hardships and solutions to many of the policies that are decided in Davos. But for me, just having such an event way out in the slums of Bombay was the education of a lifetime. The poverty was staggering, the water was undrinkable, and to be honest, to this day I don't know how people survive. Realizing the gap between rich and poor, between Davos and Bombay, between Wall Street and the struggling American families who are out of work or losing their homes, let's take the lesson. Obama will do what he can, but let's be active world citizens and form ties across lines and boundaries that have been set for us.

I will not be able to free Madhu from her servitude, but I can work on student loans for the poor. By accepting my own limitations I am actually freer to act than if I let them confine me, and more efficient and productive than if I ignored them. For me this isn't just a fight for a better world, but the internal struggle against cynicism. And when I see the whole world falling into an economic despair, I see the gap closing between rich and poor nations and an incredible moment for understanding worlds that are so different from ours they might as well not exist to our American eyes. We may just have to come to accept the fact ourselves that all men are NOT created equal, but through an incredible amount of effort we can close the gap.

Balance / Counter-Balance

2009-01-27T21:48:00.000-08:00

As I prepared to leave a city that I have come to love, I figured I would go and have one last relaxing chai on the ghats and watch the river pass me by. Ha! Someday I'll learn, but that day wasn't yesterday. I climbed the steep steps to my favorite perch, where a small, wrinkled man makes toothless tea out of a wooden box on stilts. He is often in good humor, and the Himalayan heights of his small chai stall deter most visitors and Indians alike. However, a group of foreigners climbed past me and a boy with caged birds followed them with guilt in the form of feathers, wings, and confined space. If you buy the birds, he lets them fly free for your money, which assures good karma and a clear conscience. But this boy had owls, owls! and he came and sat gently next to me. Sensing I wasn't in a mood of self-righteous indignation, he did not offer to sell me their freedom, which made me happy. But I stared and stared at these beautiful creatures, trapped in the wire, and asked him how much he usually charges foreigners. "100 ruppees," he replied (about $2), "each."

In the same way that I watched the river lazily roll by, I realized that I had never seen an owl so close before, and I was fascinated. I remembered having the same thought about a bear on my very first day in India on the Grand Trunk Road. A man came up to us with a "dancing bear," a nail jammed in its snout as it shook its head back and forth in agonized lunacy, and it would rear up to hug it's master. "Rupees?" the man asked as I stared in horror, wondering if I could stomach this awful country. How far had I come since then, sitting here looking at these gorgeous owls? The male looked straight at me without any bird-like twitchy movements, his bright red eyes looking right back. My heart sank that such beautiful creatures had been captured, as I'm sure was intended. His stare was eerie and a little chilling, and after several moments I told the boy, "he has the eyes of men," effectively interrupting his story of where the owls came from and how much he paid for them. We were both quiet as the birds struggled in their cages.
Most foreigners who come to India are more struck by the animals than the human condition, which for me is understandable. Animals are truly helpless against the sheer numbers and living conditions of the people. Man and beast co-exist side by side on a daily basis, occupying more of a spectrum than a hierarchy. The goats wear sweaters, the dogs look at you with their infinitely guilty eyes, and travel in vicious wolf packs during the nights in the slums. During the days they scratch their mange and seem to say, "If only you could briefly forgive me for not being human, maybe you could spare a little of that which you're eating, or maybe just take me home and love me forever?" The monkeys are unpredictable, mischievous (don't hang your underwear up to dry outside!), and fascinating, like little idiot people with enviable super-human strength... even the ones with only one arm. I could watch them forever. And the cows, oblivious to the traffic, the plastic, and the flower malas hanging around their necks, painted red, chew their cud like they have for a shmillion years to the present, and like they will for another bajillion to come. And while we're on the subject of cows, holy cows are not so sacred that I can't have fun once in awhile. Often when a Hindu woman asks what I would like to eat, I will smile mischievously and say "cow, just a little. Maybe just a hoof or part of the leg." Scandalized, they will often try to hide their morbid fascination, as if I just admitted to being a cannibal and that I sometimes munch on children's fingers when I get hungry. But only once awhile. It is a safe game for a vegetarian. "Really, though, do you eat cow in your country?" "Not me," I say, waiting for the anticipation to build, "but my brothers do." "EEEEEEeeeeeeeeeee!!!"

But this owl situation had me in a moral conundrum once again, and really I just wanted to sip chai. Often times in India I get the distinct feeling I used to have as a child when I would arrive at the playground alone, or when one of my brothers didn't feel like going on the see-saw with me. Wishing I could be on both sides at once, counter-balancing my own weight, I would settle for the lamest of possible compromises and precariously teeter back and forth in the middle by myself, which is no fun at all. But such is this situation with caged birds. With poverty. With being American, or being Indian. Knowing that in a million situations there simply is no right or wrong action, just different outcomes that will change the world forever in one direction based on a decision you shouldn't have to make in the first place. A morally gray playground, and a morally gray human not able to split in two and counteract my own affects on this planet. I look skeptically at the owls' wings, were they clipped? Were they trained, and would they return to their owner once freed? You have to look for these things in India, but I found no evidence. I offered him 50 rupees for both, an insult I knew. "No," he said, "50 rupees for the little songbirds." I got up to pay for my chai. "Ek cigarette, dijiye?" Sure, why not? I gave the captor a cigarette, and looked at the owls again.
"Their eyes are sad," I said.
"Yes," he said, and we were both quiet on the banks of the Ganges.
Did I free the beautiful owls? No.

Seven Thousand Words...

2009-01-24T03:34:00.000-08:00

Varanasi

2009-01-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

I just recently left Bodhgaya after several weeks of rural outings and relaxing with people I've come to regard as family, and arrived at perhaps my favorite place on this swinging planet: Varanasi. This city always takes my breath away, an ancient and decrepid creature, haunched and lapping the holy waters from the banks of the Ganges. The river is slow at this time of year, and it seems like eternity drifts with its lolling currents as people perform their religious bath and thin, wooden boats lazily pass by. It is the oldest living city on earth, and it looks that way, with Banyan trees crumbling the stone edificies of small temples surely meant for Hindus. Monkeys pound the cement with their naked feet above the thin alleyways where families carry their dead to the funeral pyres, shouting "Ram Ram, Satya Hai!" What I love most is that the sadhus here are not painted for tourists, and the prayers are not open to outsiders... the devotion and the authenticity is real in the majority of hidden temples, some for men, others for women, all painted, annointed with holy water, and guarded by orange dieties. It is a romantic city, and a city of death, two themes that seem to interweave like the drifting smoke of incense into thin air.

Getting here was another story. As I sat in the Gaya train station which, for me, is truly an incarnation of hell, I felt a familiar devil creep into my cheeks with a sudden, loopy fever. Children with every deformity imagineable tugged at my hands that cradled my drooping head, and I waved them away like flies. Of course the moment I travel, the sickness sets in! I boarded the train (thankfully only a mere hour and a half late) and fell into a fitful sleep. I was only woken once by by the clapping of sari-clad transvestites flirting their way into embarrassed Indian men's pockets. "Ay pagli, paisa de do!" one breathed in my feverish face ("Hey retard, give us some money!") What they didn't know was that I both understood Hindi and am not homophobic, so I merely rolled over and closed my eyes again to their obvious disappointment. However, I was not on this colonial-era train unequipped. Amidst the ancient smells of tobacco, urine, and curry I had my own modern product: Aspirin. Be damned, inner hippie! The stuff actually works, and five hours later as the train pulled up to Mughal Sarai I felt much better, able to bargain at least for a cab that could take me into Varanasi. If I thought I had it rough, I ran into a French/Spanish couple with two small children, maybe 1 1/2 and 3 years old, and we all rode together into the maze of the city. I felt like a child myself with the fever, I couldn't possibly imagine two little ones in tow. And if Indians are obsessed with anything it is the sight of white children, my god, Krishna might as well have manifested before their eyes!

Despite my condition I was happy. I bid the couple good luck and began to weave my way in the dark through ancient stone alleyways that twist and turn like serpents from Medusa's scalp. I heard the jingling of small bells, clapping and singing emanating from tiny, stone temples with white marble floors, and wafts of incense every several steps. After about fifteen minutes of making a series of turns that might as well be the lines in my hand, I landed in an even smaller alleyway at a small wooden door of my favorite family guest house. The mother was thrilled to see me and warmly invited me in out of the cold, and I was happy to hear they had a room. "But maybe too expensive," she mused, the room was $6/night. I falsely agreed and bargained her down to $5, which she readily accepted with a gracious smile. One of the small daughters took me to my new abode freshly painted with its own bathroom (and hot water!), king size bed and view of the Ganges from over the oldest Sanskrit library in the city. I woke up this morning refreshed from my shower, to the familiar pattern of naked, monkey feet running outside my window, and my fever had broke. I will spend the next four days here, sipping chai and admiring the finest silk in the world in the infinite textile shops. Hopefully I get some work done, but mostly I'm glad to be anonymous again and have some free time to relax in this beautiful, timeless city.

Fund This School

2009-01-20T21:22:00.000-08:00

Very rarely I do this, in fact I never do. But never say never! My good friend Anirudh has started a small school in his native village. He has been living in Bodhgaya for the past several years, but wanted to spread his wealth back to his roots. For the past few years he has shown me the school he has been supporting out of his own pocket, and introduced me to some truly fine teachers. Good teachers are hard to find in these areas, but these teachers all eminate a desire to help the poor, so they have agreed to stay. However, this year Anirudh has asked me to ask people I know if they would be interested in supporting his school so he can expand. He has built it, hired teachers, and bought pens and books all with his own money. He said the running costs to support the school of over a hundred students is $40 per month (teacher salaries included). He wants to scale to 300 students so all children in his village can learn, and he can do it with the extra help. So... if anyone is interested/able to give $40/month, this is a good cause and Anirudh will send you photos and email updates. If two people offer $20/month, or four people $10/month, we can fund education for 300 children in Bihar. Mallory guaranteed!

The Story of Pinky

2009-01-20T01:36:00.000-08:00

Every once in awhile you meet a child, someone special, who touches you and breaks the absurd seriousness and stresses of all our adult issues. For me, this child was Pinky. Five years ago I arrived in Samanvay Ashram having come to India on a one-way ticket with long dreadlocks and a sincere desire to tackle some of the profound questions in life, and was spending between five and seven hours a day in meditation. I was convinced that meditation in the place of Buddha would be a considerable advantage in my inevitable approach to unity with God. I was only half-interested in the fifty orphans who lived in the ashram with whom I worked alongside all day, I could not be bothered with more “worldy attachments” in such a critical point in my spiritual development! I woke at 4am with them for prayer, cut hay with them, cooked with them, and endured their endless teasing and abuse, but I had no idea with how to relate to such small people with so much self-knowledge. Needless to say, Pinky was not so keen on me. This strange foreigner with “sadhu hair” and the seriousness of the chronically ill, meditating all day with no desire to be one with children was not an asset to her world.

However, somehow our distaste for each other eventually subsided and (rather quickly) turned to love and mutual respect. Pinky, like me, was the oldest of three, and her two sisters Tonki and Sushilla also lived in the ashram. I suppose I recognized a lot of myself in Pinky’s eyes, and I was deeply impressed by the way she approached her responsibilities and rigorous daily work. Although I could not speak Hindi at the time, we became silent friends, conversing only in a crappy baby-slang version of Bihari dialect. Over the course of the year I spent about six months total in Samanvay Ashram, and Pinky became my best friend. Favoritism? Yes, definitely, but who could resist the sisters, the youngest Sushilla coming to my room each morning and waking me with a high-pitched “Malloria?” Over the years my love for the three of them has remained, and last year I was sad to see that the girls had left the ashram to go back and help their mother in the village. I left Bodhgaya without seeing my adopted favorites.

Over the years I have offered to help Pinky in many ways during long conversations behind the small, wooden door of my room in the ashram. I always made it very clear that she had to figure out what would be best for her situation, I would not force my opinions in any way or displace her from her environment about which I knew very little, but if she wanted to go to a better school I would pay for it. Not only is Pinky especially intelligent, but she has an incredible skill in acupressure, so I helped her go to acupressure training for a few months some years back. I am also aware that I am not the only person who saw potential in Pinky, she is an especially bright child who has captured the hearts of most people who come through the ashram, Indians and foreigners alike. So I knew Pinky had people keeping tabs on her, and trusted that I could offer her my support if she chose it without disrupting the power balance that I knew existed between her widowed mother, older step-brother, and Dwarko Sundrani, head of the ashram. (Pinky is the one behind the woman in the yellow sari, her step-sister).

So when I walked into the kitchen a few days ago, I was delighted to see Pinky as a young woman somewhere between the ages of 15 and 16, dressed to the nines with a long braid down her back (the ashram children are forced to cut their hair short because of lice, something which Pinky despised). Villagers in Bihar do not have birth certificates, none the less birthdays or exact ages, and she hugged me tight with a bright smile and said I should come to her village with her. I was a little surprised because I had asked for such a privilege many times, to which Pinky always shook her head with a silent smile. “My family very poor man,” she would say. But an hour later we were walking hand in hand to her house for the first time after five years of friendship. When she looked at me and said “Mallory, bahan, thora helf kijiye?” (Mallory,sister, can you give me a little help?) I knew something must be on her mind. Pinky is one of the proudest people I know and has certainly never asked me for help, especially while looking me directly in my eyes. She explained that her step brother is working as a taxi driver in Gaya to support himself and his wife, mother, Pinky and her two sisters; seven in all. The recent rains collapsed the straw roof of their small mud, three-room house (one room is for the cow and goat), and it was the last straw to break his impoverished back. Something must change, he thought, so his solution was to find Pinky a husband as soon as possible so that he can have one less mouth to feed. Fighting tears, Pinky told me she does not want to marry, but wants to continue her education. “Ok,” I said, “let’s think about this.”

Pinky and I brainstormed several possibilities for me to help, and settled on the best for me to present to her brother and mother. All day we sat in the house, joking after a happy reunion with Tonki and Sushilla, cutting potatoes and catching up on gossip about common acquaintances. As night fell Pinky became nervous, changing into a different outfit as she began preparing our delicious meal of puri (fried bread) and vegetables. To make the situation more tense, their tiny calf had come down with a fever that afternoon and died in front of us by the fire as we sat around helplessly. Pinky knew that even though the calf was her brother’s wife’s responsibility, she would be blamed and our master plan would be tainted by this additional loss in assets. I sat under the semi-collapsed roof and before long whispers circulated the house, the man had returned home. Sure enough, Pinky went out to greet him and tell him about the cow, and yelling ensued. They both entered after some time and I greeted him warmly, as he did with me. I like Pinky’s brother a lot and have always had good experiences with him, but I also knew the extent of his rule in the house – his word is final.

Pinky cooked, her brother spoke with his wife about the calf, and I played with Tonki and Sushilla. After some time Pinky took my hand and led me into the bedroom that she, sisters, mother and sometimes the brother’s wife share, saying, “Mallory, you sit here.” The room was dark and windowless, a naked bulb hanging over the single woven cot, the coal fire inside burned my eyes and the smell was noxious. When her brother entered the room I knew it was time for delivery. Slowly I began, with proper deference, and despite my broken Hindi he understood my proposal. He heard my terms, and I listen to his concerns and fears for Pinky and his family’s future – both sides are very important here. I am not comfortable bargaining for a girl’s future, but I also know that marriage in these communities is a business transaction, and to be taken seriously I must approach it as such. Negotiations lasted for about an hour, but by the end we had settled on a decision. I will pay upfront to cover the cost of a new roof for the family, and subsequently give the family a little money each month to help with the burden of three girls with no father. Pinky will go to school and, if she wants, work after school to earn a little for the family, and her marriage will be postponed for two more years until she is 17-18 years old. The total cost of everything for me is a little more than $100. Both sides are happy and Pinky has once again become an asset to her family.

After some time Pinky enters the room with the food and the whole family sits around, smacking their lips, burping and farting loudly in a show of appreciation. I wink at Pinky and she smiles and looks down at her food to hide her joy. When we finish it is late, the stars shine over this small village in Eastern India and the moon is almost full. You can hear other families talking, quarreling, goats bleating, and life continues undisturbed. I lay on the woven cot that ends at my calves, and Pinky and Sushilla lay beside me. Tonki climbs under the cot next to the coal burning in a metal pot, the sister-in-law sleeps on the floor next to us, and at the foot of the bed the mother snores loudly. I pull the covers over my head to shield me against the bombarding mosquitoes and the sharp light from the little naked bulb that hangs above us that I know they keep on in my honor. Wondering how I will ever fall asleep, I drift off into a dreamless land until some hours later when I feel someone poking my nose, “Malloria?” I open my eyes and begin another day in Bihar to Sushilla’s enormous smile, and a warm chai that Pinky has already made for me.

Religion

2009-01-19T00:40:00.000-08:00

“The accommodative language of ‘political correctness,’ so fashionable in some of the world’s largest democracies, must be recognized as a language of complicity with the league of darkness and intolerance in the life-and-death struggle of enlightenment and creativity. It comforts the proponents of terror and dehumanizes the victims even further, for it subsumes their trauma under a doctrine of relativity that degenerates their fundamental and universal right to life and freedom.” -Wole Soyinka

Lately I have been reading many books about Islam because my understanding of this religion is disgracefully small despite the wars we are waging against Islamic countries and cultures around the world. Perhaps my evasion of the topic of religious conflict stems from my evasion of religion in my own life in many ways, ever since I was small and had to wear dresses to Sunday school. Though I find inspiration and support from passages from many religious texts, my mind rebels the moment a god or idea of divinity is limited and bound to the abstractions of text. Therefore, until this point I have often let religion slip off my shoulders, simply because that is one of many freedoms I was born with. It is popular among liberal theology to assume that “all gods are one,” but I have come to realize that it is equally important to note that there are distinct and mutually exclusive passages in religious texts that are difficult to interpret otherwise.

I have begun to wonder, “What do I stand for?” Coming from the Bay Area I have adopted the general “anything goes” mentality, perhaps to my own detriment. Confined by political correctness and an intense desire to be liberal (as others might seek to be “pure”) I am coming to realize my own limitations within an American leftist ideology. Namely, I feel strongly that we are not doing anyone any favors, including ourselves, by avoiding the issues within Islam as a religion. Perhaps because I was raised Christian I feel comfortable to deride traditions that I see as medieval and painfully backwards within the Catholic Church, the Evangelical community and the Christian Right, though I know many wonderful Christians. Just as I know many incredible Muslims and draw inspiration from the Islamic intellectual community (specifically Salmon Rushdie and Tahar Djaout, the latter who was murdered by fundamentalists for his outspoken thoughts on Islamists), I also think it’s high time we actually read the Quran and practiced one of the freedoms we so often laud yet severely under use; critical analysis. My opinion here might not be popular, but as much as I hate the violence, slave women, and a vengeful God in the Old Testament, I also hate the idea that similar oppression is occurring today under our very noses as we look away under the guise of “multiculturalism.”

More specifically, I have been reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s memoir, Infidel, which has me mesmerized. As a black, female Muslim emerging from civil war in Somalia, she has undergone every possible trauma imaginable, including female genital mutilation as a young girl. Her entire story is riveting, yet one passage involving her immigration research in Holland stuck out to me personally, and I would like to share it here:

“If Muslim immigrants lagged so far behind even other immigrant groups, then wasn’t it possible that one of the reasons could be Islam? Islam influences every aspect of believers’ lives. Women are denied their social and economic rights in the name of Islam, and ignorant women bring up ignorant children. Sons brought up watching their mother being beaten will use violence. Why was it racist to ask this question? Why as it antiracist to indulge people’s attachments to their old ideas and perpetuate this misery? The passive, Insh’Allah attitude so prevalent in Islam- “if Allah wills it”- couldn’t this also be said to affect people’s energy and their will to change and improve the world? If you believe that Allah predestines all, and life on earth is simply a waiting room for the Hereafter, does that belief have no link to the fatalism that so often reinforces poverty?” (p.279)

Yes, I am calling myself out…I have been lazy. But as I read book after book of first hand accounts of women being abused, children’s horizons being blocked as creativity becomes sinful, and ignorant men asserting their power based on an ancient text, I feel a stirring in my conscience. My most dear values are not reflected in the values of a text written in a violent atmosphere in Saudi Arabia in the 7th century during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. Equal racial/gender rights, free speech, sexual choice (for gays and straights alike), women's rights to choose abortion/contraception, religious freedom, right to fair trial, separation of church and state; these are all blasphemous and discouraged in many parts of the Quran. So I can either ignore that fact and tacitly support the spread of Islam under the auspices of “cultural relativism,” or I can take a stance. Just as I can find inspiration in the Bible (specifically in the New Testament), there are passages of peace within the Quran, but we need to view these passages in context and discuss what these contradictions mean to international human rights and closely held values that have taken incredible efforts to achieve; from the Civil Rights Movement to Harvey Milk.

Precisely because I am so appalled with the “War on Terror” and the Bush administration’s methods of coping with the 9/11 attacks, I think it is important to educate myself about the tenets of Islam. Only if we are educated and form opinions regarding what we believe and what we can compromise can we come up with a better solution than war. European countries have to deal with this question of assimilation and immigration at and within their own borders, whereas we are still geographically separate from countries with Islamic Law. But we should take the time to ponder: what would it be like to live in a country where even the weather channel is banned because it is seen as questioning God’s will? From a rational standpoint, why are women wearing full-black costumes in the hottest places on earth and suffering Vitamin D deficiencies where the sun is the fiercest? I believe those who can help us most in this battle of fundamentalism are moderate Muslim thinkers, some of which I’ve already mentioned, who are the Spinoza’s of their time. Not until we realize the levels of oppression we are sanctioning with our political correctness can we begin to offer valid solutions to very real problems in this world.

Sister Mary, नारी जागरण मंच

2009-01-17T21:33:00.000-08:00

I spent the better part of my afternoon with an incredibly inspiring Christian nun named Sister Mary. Wearing Gandhi's khadi (homespun) cloth, with her silvery hair pulled back in a tight bun, and standing at shoulder height she is a ball of energy, brewing coffee and diving straight into the plight of Dalit (untouchable) women in Bihar. She should know, through her organization Nari Jagran Manch (http://www.dalitwomenpower.org/) she works with women of the Bhuniya caste, the lowest of the Dalit population here. She has started a lending program through women's Self Help Groups (SHGs) based on the Grameen model, where women organize themselves into small borrowing groups and take out a loan collectively. Individually they have no collateral and therefore no borrowing power. Repayment rates in her program are extremely high unless a natural disaster such as last year's drought (as you may remember northern Bihar flooded, but the south remained parched) affects her borrowing communities. As we sit down to instant coffee and biscuits, she continues her deeply concerned diatribe in her crisp, Indian-British accent, "we are dealing with thousands and thousands of years of oppression, you know!" She is right, Biharis are second class citizens in India, Dalits are second class citizens in Bihar, and women are second class citizens to men (to severely simplify the unending distinctions). She certainly has her work cut out for her, yet remains optimistic.

Within our limited understanding of "untouchable" castes exist very real and important distinctions. Just the other day while I was visiting an SHG with People First, a heated debate broke out within the group. A woman from the Paswan caste (just barely above Bhuniya) refused to be in the same lending group as a Bhuniya, and they screamed insults back and forth at each other. The Paswans will not think of being in a lending group with the Bhuniyas, and in fact want to keep the Bhuniyas in their place, waxing the little leverage they have within a system that ensures everyone's discrimination. Lending to these people is almost unthinkable. The government is currently providing heavy subsidies for the "backwards castes" to send their children to school, and even with multiple incentives people simply do not value education, where almost 100% of the female population is illiterate and children marry at around 12 or 13 years old. Many people from this caste are living in Naxal (terrorist) villages with no electricity or running water for miles, and they eat boiled leaves and spiced rats. Sister Mary put it this way, "For education in these areas you have to go all out, provide subsidies and incentives- basically it's intervention. Microfinance is a different thing." Honestly I think she is right, the more I visit these villages the more I realize that even when the government or NGOs offer full scholarships, lunch meals, and bicycles, the parents STILL don't send their children to school. It takes specific intervention and intensive work to reach them. Sister Mary especially focuses on girls, saying, "the girls are more disadvantaged in the long run, in every single possible way. We are dealing with thousands of years of casteism, coupled with oppression of women." However as the afternoon continues and we talk about structural models, I feel uplifted in my heart knowing that she continues this work below the radar. She remains anonymous in the seas of false NGOs that exist in Bodhgaya, and does her work in jungle areas where no one sees. She says she prefers it this way, the government doesn't get in the way and she doesn't have to deal with the town gossip. On the contrary, the Naxalites are happy with the work she is doing because she is providing direct services for the poorest people. If you ask me, this is the silent "War on Terrorism," being waged by thousands of unknown people like Sister Mary who know that somehow, though we may never fully understand it, our fate is linked to those living in the jungle areas of Bihar.

Cosmopolitanism

2009-01-16T03:13:00.000-08:00

“In some ways, today’s development economics is like eighteenth-century medicine, when doctors used leeches to draw blood from their patients, often killing them in the process.” Jeffrey Sachs, The End of Poverty

Lately I have been thinking that there must exist a medium between the neo-liberal ideology which has absolutely wrecked third-world economies an plummeted the poorest nations into spiraling debt, and local, discreet organizations that operate in specific communities building schools, starting health centers, and scraping by to gather financing in a well-financed world. Building on local expertise and knowledge of history, climate, economic patterns, agronomy, local government, transport costs, traditions, gender roles and other such important aspects of development/economic diagnosis, we can also look toward the increased benefit of communication, transport, technological and scientific knowledge and advancement that exists as potential in developed countries. Not to say the relationship has not historically been exploitative, it has, but how do we as conscious citizens from a global society turn the tide? As a child of the global age, my mind balks at the idea of plowing a field with a couple of bullock in rural India to serve a discreet program. If I can watch YouTube videos from Japan or Korea, why can’t capital flow freely around the world to the most needy populations as well? I know that they are different aspects of our global culture, but surely we can find some solutions for those who live in abject poverty.

As I slowly emerge from my reactionary shellshock of learning about economic atrocities committed against the “laggard” nations since the GATT agreement after WWII (after formal imperialism), I find myself blinking into an ambiguous gap between two conflicting ideologies; neo-liberal expansion and grassroots resistance. However much I draw inspiration from grassroots revolutionaries, my experience here in India calls for me to get over myself and bridge these ideologies. Nowhere else have I experienced so extremely the rupture between old and new, rich and poor, ancient and technologically advanced as I have in India. This may be nauseatingly cliché, but please don’t gag, it is true. It takes a flexible mind to hold both realities of subsistence living and shanty dwellers brushing shoulders (or serving as servants) with wealthy Indians and foreigners running international businesses via Blackberrys. Rationality cowers at such a challenge, often side-stepping the issue with a shrug or in my case a casual “Om nama Shivaya” that I first learned in Costa Rica. Unimaginable, yet real and here before my eyes. So I think, with this mental flexibility slowly stretching its limbs and testing new waters, it’s time to think differently and merge some of the idiosyncrasies and seemingly contrary world views, holding each in one hand. I must be in the land of Buddha, right?

I know that ideologically what I am talking about is called “Cosmopolitanism,” but what does that look like in practical terms? Microfinance is an incredible tool that I have found to allow capital and technological knowledge to flow directly to economically marginal communities. Microfinance offers locals an opportunity to organize themselves, with the benefit of oversight from organized companies and NGOs, and choose their own vocations specific to their niche in society, thus beginning the slow and arduous climb out of poverty. The instances where local knowledge has lacked (in the form of understanding appropriate salary amounts, gender roles/discrimination, or other cultural mores that would affect non-collateral loans) programs have failed miserably. High interest rates further indebt the poor, husbands take money from their borrowing wives who have to then answer to a village council, families take more than they can repay; these are disasters. But with right understanding of the precarious economic situation in such areas, we can use our global know-how to scale programs, connect people internationally, and use successes as platforms to disseminate knowledge and leadership. Both organic societal structures (word of mouth) and global fundraising, networking capacity, and technological knowledge can work together towards poverty alleviation in this model, though the task is not small.

Basically I am trying to heal the rift that exists both within myself as well in the outer world by using aspects of these two worlds appropriately for the benefit of those who have been left behind, the marginalized who continue the cycle of poverty. Stepping out of both skins of global exploitation as well as the limiting communalism that exists in many villages, I want to develop a loan product that actually reaches the “ultra poor.” Can the bottom rung be reached through microfinance? I think so, but only if I can overcome my own stigma of what that might entail. As I listened to Vikram Akula, CEO of SKS microfinance, speak a few months back, I was appalled when he said they use the business structures of McDonald’s and Walmart because of my own limited judgments about the companies themselves and lack of business knowledge. However, after a few months I have calmed down enough to come around and agree that we SHOULD be using business models from successful businesses, but with social responsibility. SKS is scaling at a rate of 10,000 new employees (not borrowers, mind you) per month! That is a lot of small loans going to women who otherwise would likely not encounter viable business opportunities. If we can learn how to maintain local-specific knowledge while scaling at the rate of Walmart, we might actually be able to eliminate severe poverty within our lifetime.

People First

2009-01-12T23:53:00.000-08:00

People First is the incredible organization in Bodhgaya that is running Rescue Junction and who I have been following around like a fly. They have been great these past two weeks in showing me some of their other programs which I had heard about but seen very little of. Everyday we have been loading hats, scarves, quilts and medicine into the packed jeep and heading out into outlying areas. Right now I am in Bodhgaya on behalf of One World Children's Fund (OWCF), an organization that helps sponsor many of People First's programs, so they have been generous with their time and I feel like a priveleged guest. When I brought the quilts last year I was impressed with their programs, and this year my respect for this difficult and important work has only deepened.

After visiting Rescue Junction (which I wrote about in another post) People First's founders, Nick and Deepak, offered me an opportunity to visit the "Remand Home," what we call Juvenile Hall. Because Rescue Junction deals with railway children, it was only a matter of time before Nick and Deepak had to visit this facility. Many children who are merely lost on the railway platforms are brought here because the police don't know what to do with them. People First has found several children who were being kept in prison who had merely been separated from their families on the overly crowded trains. Many families were beside themselves not knowing where their lost children had gone, so you can imagine their indescribable joy when they were reunited with their lost children. When Nick first visited the juvenile hall there were seventy kids being kept in three rooms with no outside light. They all had lung infections from the cold, wet floors and coal fires that burned in the small, dark quarters. He has worked in Bihar for a long time but said he had never seen anything like it. He and Deepak quickly brough the district judge, a woman, to assess the facility. She cried when she saw the kids and angrily demanded, "who allowed this to happen?!" Needless to say, because of PF's efforts, the children have been relocated to a much better location with natural light, space, and outdoor time each day. We went that day to provide sweaters for the now 144 boys living in the prison because the state had not provided them with any warmth. You can imagine, a state whose apparatus has failed to the extent that NGO's are providing their prisoners with sweaters, when it's the state that should be supporting the work that NGO's like PF are doing in rural Bihar! We arrived to eager faces, many of whom have been charged with serious crimes; murder, rape, and/or kidnapping. Which children are guilty and which are innocent is hard to tell, some are younger than ten and were arrested with their whole families when the father committed an offense, others are guilty. The District Magistrate of the Remand Home showed up briefly for the photo op, looking heavily sedated, and left in an opiate haze as soon as the pictures had been taken. He is the individual responsible for the boys' future, and as we left I understood why Nick and Deepak had taken it upon themselves to intervene.

Aside from Rescue Junction, People First has Self-Help Groups (SHG) for microlending to women, a health clinic, sewing centers for girls to learn tailoring, and schools in many villages that surround Bodhgaya. Yesterday we went to the adjoining state of Jarkhand to visit Paini sewing center for girls and school for small children. In 2001, 20 mineral rich districts seceded from the failing state of Bihar and started their own state, Jarkhand. Because the central Indian government (ICG) has pitted states against each other to compete for domestic and foreign investment, Jarkhand is doing very well as compared with Bihar, who after the split complained that now Bihar had only "Aloo, Paloo, and Lalu" (potatoes, sand, and a corrupt politician, Lalu Yadav). None the less, PF is still running in the village areas of now Jarkhand where they started some of their first programs. Today we went on another health clinic visit to places where children run in terror from my white skin, and women laugh until I look at them and they duck away smiling. The older women, however, have the raunchiest sense of humor that makes even me blush despite the fact that I only catch pieces of what they are saying. People have to stand in front of their whole village, men and women alike, and tell the PF doctor about their health issues. The old women don't make it easier, cackling and pointing loudly to the body parts of interest. One woman from each village is the local health assistant, who knows within hours at women in the village are pregnant, who is sick, who has chronic illness/pain. It is with her local knowledge that the PF mobile clinic workers can best serve these communities. Today we gave two quilts to the health assistants in different villages after giving people their check-ups.

All in all, People First is amazing and they are providing resources to some of the most needy communities in Bihar. I will also be visiting a couple of other programs that OWCF sponsors, and let you all know how those visits go. Om shanti.

Health Clinic

2009-01-10T20:52:00.001-08:00

Quilt Delivery

2009-01-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

When I awoke several days ago to the excited chirping of parrots outside my window and the smell of rain in the air I was happy. I thought, now the dust will settle, the dust that pervades everything, gets in your hair and won’t get out, dust that turns your boogers black. But instead we go a thin layer of all-pervasive muck, enough to make you slip on anything, to cover every single thing with mud, to make you wish for dust. It was in this mud and falling rain that I began my morning by making my way to my favorite kapra (clothing) shop. There are few pleasures in this world that can compete with sitting on a cushioned floor of an Indian fabric shop, sipping chai, and having fabrics thrown at you one after the other. I asked for simple, cheap white cloth that the kids could draw on so we could make more quilts and pillow cases back home to generate funds for Rescue Junction. The man found at least 15 different white cloths that fit the description, and a small girl brought me warm chai as rain fell lightly outside the small stone building. "This one!" I chose at random but with the proper vehemence that such a moment of final decision calls for, and he proceeded to cut the said cloth into small squares for me.

People First’s jeep came to pick me up, and as we wove our way through streets to Gaya, bands of young boys wearing shiny headbands and wielding beautiful old rusty swords walked in packs, shouting different chants. The celebration was somber throughout the city, while Muslims celebrated Muhaaram, the day of Mohammad’s murder. I celebrated in my own wayby finding my way to a small, inconspicuous building behind the Gaya train station. Rescue Junction is a shelter that provides food and education for children who live on the railway platforms at this station. Abandoned, orphaned, or simply lost, packs of children roam the railways looking through trash or sweeping the platforms and trains for a few meager rupees. These children often do not survive to the age of twenty, and most are prone to glue sniffing, gang fights and exposure to both weather and predators in a life we can't imagine. However, People First bought a building near the station and began an incredible program of outreach and rehabilitation. It's hard to find a place to start working in a city as rough and impoverished as Gaya, but these kids are certainly a worthy cause. After three years of running this program, the ones who have stayed and benefited the most are literate, share with their comrades, and receive health care and regular meals. It's really impressive to see them compared to children in other parts of India living on the platforms, a testament to child rehabilitation.

Upon arriving at Rescue Junction I began an art class with the excited children, some of whom I recognized from last year. I took out the pieces of cloth that I had cut this morning and handed out pens for them to draw elephants, self portraits, Bodhi trees, birds, etc. Back in the states we have found some willing participants to sell pillowcases made from this fabric to generate revenue for the center. The children were joyous, smiling and sharing their pens and coloring furiously, I have to say my heart was full. These kids could be out in the rain and mud, collecting torn plastic bags, but they are learning and living healthy lives with adult protection. When they were finished with their masterpieces, we went upstairs for the main event. An art teacher named Chyah from St. Hilary's private school in Tiburon, California has been doing this quilt project for years. She has her own students draw self portraits on fabric squares similar to the ones I bought that morning, and a quilting group in Marin sews the pictures into beautiful, multi-colored quilts. When I arrived I had two gigantic bags in tow, full to the brim with the goods, and I was eager to give them to their rightful owners. Among hushed whispers and irrepressible smiles (they tried to feign seriousness!) the children were bursting with happiness as I handed each new child a quilt. Many had their own from last year, which lined their beds in the sleeping hall, so we only gave 10 quilts to the new children. It is really an incredible program, and the children gain so much self-worth by having their very own piece of art in the form of a beautiful quilt. Plus, they love seeing the self portraits of the foreign children who somehow, though so far away, have touched their lives.

The next day I came back, more fabric in tow. I was happy that I could return so soon, I am impressed every time I come to this shelter. The former little monsters again subsided (at least momentarily) as they colored, shared pens, conversed in hushed whispers and then approached me with their newest drawings, shy grins spreading under the intensity of their eyes. It was a couple of full days, but I enjoyed the warmth and smiles of children this world had abandoned, but who have been given a second chance. I felt renewed as I stepped back outside from the color of the small school into the expansive brown of Gaya.

नया साल हैं!

2009-01-07T05:04:00.000-08:00

Namaste, happy new year! Recently I arrived in India again and wanted to reach out across the globe to share some of my thoughts from this side of things, and simultaneously invite you all to write with your own thoughts and opinions. I will be spending the next few months in India trying to develop an educational loan for the "ultra poor," meaning those who would or could not go to school without financial assistance. Traditional microfinance, if not catered specifically to this population, often reaches the moderate poor who have some capital to invest, which is especially true for education. Our San Francisco based company is trying to pioneer an Ultra Poor Program and I'm the lucky one who gets to spend some time in India developing the product. It is certainly a large task that I feel both humbled and excited by approaching, and I'm looking forward to spending some months in a place that I love working on a project that aims to alleviate some of the appalling poverty that exists here.

However, my first stop is in a place I've come to know as my second home: Bodhgaya, in the northeast state of Bihar. As the recent influx of 10,000 monks tramples this little town into dust and chaos for the week-long New Year's celebration, I have been making my way either into the back country in safari-like jeeps over deeply rutted village by-ways, or into the smoggy and soot-covered city of Gaya in a stately imperial era car (Ambassador Classic!). The goal? First I will deliver 35 quilts to children living in the local railway station through the organization People First (here), followed by an attempt to research and develop a golden student loan that actually reaches needy families in India. Already my proposal has been received with blatant laughter in the village of Bagah, where families monthly expenditure is 40 rupees (less than a dollar per month, not day) and who survive on small plots of land as subsistance farmers. I told them that any advise or insight they have will help me, and invited the village council to be creative and help me brainstorm ideas for their community. Almost no one in these villages can read or write their own names, and they are still living in feudal systems similar to Europe in the middle ages. The people are friendly and warm, their dark eyes inviting me to relax as I accept yet another cup of chai. Women hide behind their saris with sideways glances that could kill, as men argue heatedly about the possibility of loans in the area. "You can give, but you will not get back!" they laugh, agree, and then fall silent thinking, mumbling to each other in low tones. Any sort of steps out of the cycle of poverty are arduous in these villages of the so-called "backwards" castes, where after hundreds of visits to these areas I have yet to see an operating government school. Often with a chuckle the driver will point to an empty, square brick building and say "that's the government school." But I persist, hoping to at least learn and take some advise from the people who live and toil on the land under the unforgiving Bihari sun. I leave Bagah with the assurance that they will think the matter over and get back to me.

As for right now, the temperature has dropped and a thick fog blankets all vision well into the afternoon. Everyone is chilled to the bone, and after the red sun sets in the hazy sky the coal fires are lit and the air fills with smoke. This land cursed with extreme heat, cold, drought, and subsequent floods is where Buddha gained enlightenment. Often my mental patterns go haywire when I stay here, and this time is no exception as I feel pulled from one emotion to another in a way I have not experienced elsewhere in the world. Ideals and ideology wrestle themselves in my mind, sometimes (if I'm lucky) with enlightening outcomes. In the coming weeks I hope to share some of these ponderings with all of you, please add to this exploration process with your own input at any time. May 2009 bring some hope into all of our lives, much love to you all!