In case anyone has forgotten. .

Let's be quite honest. I am an American.

Just like I forget sometimes that I am in INDIA when I wake up in the morning, I sometimes forget that I am not an Indian. This may seem like a ridiculously pretentious statement, but let me explain. When I walk down the streets and the rickshaws follow at close distance in true stalker fashion trying to get my business, I ignore them--yet the attention suddenly reminds me that I don’t walk like an Indian woman. When I step into a fabric shop and get dizzy from the array of cloth, color, and embroidery, I remember that my mother never sifted through these colors and never bargained for my clothes when we shopped together. When I step out the door to go for a run and return with a gallon of sweat on my body, I remember that I was told to be “ladylike” as a child, but that “ladylike” still allowed me to run around with the boys at recess as long as I wore spandex under my skirt. When I talk to Indian students I remember that I am a native English speaker, awkwardly unable to understand people speaking my own language and unable to make myself understood. While I can use the bus system, go to the tailor, and eat chilis with my samosa, I’m still just wearing a costume over my American-ness.

Study abroad programs love to brag about cultural immersion, changing jeans-wearing, peanut butter-eating American students into sensitive bi-cultural world travelers. Us students love to brag about our latest bargain purchase on the streets of the Old City, how crossing the street seems entirely natural, and how the food at the Guest House seems bland. Let’s be honest. I’m still not giving up my jeans, and the student canteen still takes the spice out when they see light skin or blue eyes. It’s also going to take me a little longer than a month and a half to get used to bargaining for fabric that is packed into shelves with more patterns than one American store would dream of showing in twenty seasons, let alone one. My English will always be awkwardly enunciated. I will always attract more attention than necessary by overly zealous rickshaw drivers trying to make a buck in a wickedly competitive road.

With this sentiment in mind, I went back to FabIndia. Located in Banjara Hills, the ritzy, mansion-filled neighborhood of Hyderabad, I am essentially shopping in the Harvard Square of this city. When the CIEE program first introduced us to this shop a month ago, we whined that this was not “authentic India” and we did not come all the way here for them to show us the Americanized stores and malls of Hyderabad. As we've all discovered, the kind of people who come to India to study abroad are of a particular religion-and-philosophy-studying, neo-hippie mold. Our complaints are valid in some sense--we didn't come to act like tourists. Most of us also didn't come here because we are terribly enchanted by American consumer culture.

But let’s be honest. Two things are also true. First, who am I to tell the native Indians who shop in Banjara Hills that they are not Indian? Am I not American because I shop on a budget and love Chinese food and Italian coffee? India has a strong material culture all their own, just as unique as we like to think it is. Why else would thousands of plaster Ganesh statues find their way into the lake at the end of the week? Banjara Hills is just as much India as the tarp huts on the side of the road and the women who walk with baskets on their heads. Secondly, a native Californian who has never been outside of the United States is not going to be able to drift through the Old City bazaars with the ease of a woman who has been shopping alongside her mother, grandmother, and aunties since she was a girl. Hence, FabIndia. Genuine Indian cotton, connected to the store with no middle-man, cut into solid colored kurtas, “Indian skinny-pants” and salwars and presented in a manner that doesn’t make me feel dizzy. Suddenly this seems like a terribly wonderful idea, and a compromise rather than a cop-out. Of course it is ridiculous to remind myself that I’m not an Indian, but in the effort to throw ourselves into Indian culture sometimes I forget. I forget that this isn’t supposed to be immediate, or easy, and that sometimes I just need to buy a plain white kurta with no frills. I am, after all, an American.

Angels in the Bedroom of Akbar

Let me preface this by saying that an ideosynchratic interest in Medieval Indian history as well as Arabic spawned this title for a post, and to all those who have never heard of Akbar the Great and care nothing for obscure Islamic terminology, I apologize. To me, however, these particular conversations reached the same part of me that dissolves into giggles at the name Estes Kefauver*.

The true acknowledgments, however, belong to my Urdu professor, for both his insight and sensitivity, as well as his toleration of my awkward questions.

To start at the beginning:
Throughout my learning of the Urdu alphabet, my professor tests his own canny and pronunciation by throwing words at Jan and I for us to then transcribe in Urdu. Along with the usual words such as “you” and “tree” and “mother’s sister’s husband,” we come across such words as “حور“ that is, “hūr.” Now, for all those of you who a) don’t speak arabic, or b) aren’t familiar with more obscure Islamic terminology, “حور“ takes some explaining. “حور“ are the female angels which supposedly greet the Muslim man upon his entrance to heaven. Of course, I had to ask whether there were any male angels, to which Sir responded that Muslim women have been asking that question for years, and he supposed there were, maybe. He also added that the whole thing is quite vague, and of course, Jan and I would never come to his office to be entertained by the computer or some such thing, therefore one should not be going to heaven only to be entertained by “حور“ when reaching God is the real motivation behind heaven. At that we moved on, and tucked away that particular vocabulary word, “حور“ .

Now at this point I still had a certain innocence regarding the definition of “حور“, so when the word “ ملک“ [“malak”] was introduced to the picture I had to ask, “How are ملک related to حور ?”
To which Sir burst out laughing.

Of course, “ ملک“ had only been defined as “angels,” so given the previous discussion I felt I had to clarify whether these “ ملک“ were female angels or male angels, as well as their particular occupation. After Sir’s outburst of laughter gave me a clue that perhaps these angels had nothing to do with “حور“ at all, I was informed that “ ملک“ are male angels, although strictly in the sense of messenger or warrior angels along the likes of Gabriel. Indeed, completely unrelated to “حور“.

Now on to Akbar…
Preface this story by two things: one, that Akbar ruled the Mughal empire during the sixteenth century, and two, that on this totally separate day in Urdu class, I was running on 5 hours of sleep and had just come from 4 hours of lectures with a break for lunch.

Noticing my glazed eyes, I suppose, Sir decided that before he started in with the vocabulary he would try to wake me up with a few jokes. Starting in, he described a history of Medieval India professor not unlike my own Madam, describing the royal chambers of Akbar. Interrupted, she goes of on a tangent for a moment and then finishing, asks the class, “Where was I?” To which some facetious student calls out, “In the bedroom of Akbar!”

: )

* Estes Kefauver, who has no claim to fame except for a failed run as VP alongside Adlai Stevenson in the 1954 presidential election, and just about the best name in political history.

Geckos and Rain of Epic Proportions

The Geckos have landed. Or rather, the smallest one has decided to grace me with a photo, so here you are:

Aww, isn't he cute?! He sat there for a good half hour while I read Lila, after I took the photo.

Thus ends the story of the Geckos. Apologies to all, but they really are less interesting than you think they are. Shy and unassuming, they do not sell car insurance or dance or any such stereotypes that we apply to them in the States. They may, however, be eating my spiders, although Charlotte is doing just fine on my ceiling…so far.

The rain in Hyderabad, creates a far more interesting story, although I must admit I am a little disappointed in you all. Because Kindergarten and the Bedroom of Akbar are much more interesting than a rain storm, if you ask me. Nothing can get past these darned geckos.

Our little monsoon escapade began with an innocent American wish to take part in the Dark Knight movie phenomenon that seems to have hit everywhere. We had tickets and cash and rickshaw-bartering skills all ready, as well as our resident SIP house-and-student caretaker, Mr. Das. The weather had other plans, as we soon found out. Now, when I came to India I knew it was monsoon season, so I came prepared for rain of magnitude I had never seen. Up until that Friday night, the so-called “monsoon” had no more guts than a drippy rainy day in Seattle, let alone the strength to power our electricity. That one evening, however, made up for it all. Standing outside waiting for people to be ready we soon realized that no rickshaw driver in his right mind would drive 45 minutes across the city for any amount of money, as we watched the rain wash down the sides of the building like a flat-walled waterfall. Thirty seconds underneath an umbrella left you looking like you had just come in from a water fight, minus a yamukkah-sized dry spot on your head, if you were lucky. With no rickshaws to be had, Mr. Das called in the strength of a car, although we only had one car at first for ten people. This being India, we all piled in anyway, 10 people into something the size of our Geo back in the states, all sopping wet of course. We ride like this to the gate of the University before we call in another car and split up.

Only to be informed by our friends already at the IMAX theatre that the movie had been cancelled. All that and I still haven’t seen Batman, only a monsoon. The truly epic part of all of this is the duration of the rain, which kept us cooped up inside playing chess for the rest of the weekend, only occationally lightening up to a mild downpour.

Next monsoon weekend forecast: Gilmore Girls marathon

For lack of decisiveness, here's a list of potential subject lines for this next post:
Angels in the Bedroom of Akbar
Kindergarten in India
Geckos and Rain of Epic Proportions.
...ten days is a lot to summarize, and I don't want to leave anything out. So, I'll start with alif and work my way down to gaf.

Or you can vote while I go to the mailbox...

Hyderabad, Part Two

Enter photos of life on campus....

My dorm room, complete with laundry and mosquito net

The infamous bucket, also useful for protecting against gastrointestinal pyrotechnics.
Murphy's law of Buckets and Vomit never fails.

My bicycle, which must weigh 10 kg

Charlotte's Web, "City People," and Quality with a capital Q

The gecko made an appearance again last night, so perhaps I can concede that it wasn’t a figment of my imagination or a transitory visitor to usher in my arrival to the Ladies Hostel. More permanent to the landscape of my room, however, are the 8 spiders decorating my ceiling with their webs, which I have conveniently begun naming—starting with Charlotte, who occupies the upper left hand side above the bare florescent lightbulb. My usual reaction to spiders or other living creatures in my room is ordinarily to put them outside, or if they prove terribly resistant to resort to force. However I believe these spiders account for the significant lack of mosquitoes in my room and besides, I couldn’t reach them on the ten foot ceiling anyway. For as long as they remain confined to their webs and I remain confined to my mosquito-net-covered bed, we have a happy little ecosystem going. Eight spiders seems a bit of an excess, but so far none of my friends who keep buying mosquito coils have taken me up on the offer of a spider from my ceiling. . .

My study of Urdu has begun in earnest, beginning with the alphabet. A grand total of 51 letters, being the Arabic alphabet, plus a few additions from Persian, plus a 15 additions from Indian phonetics. Over the summer and during the week before my professor finished his filming session at Ramoji Film City outside Hyderabad (more on that later), I had managed to teach myself most of the separated letters. Separated, being the letters standing alone, not put together in any words. As those familiar with the Perso-Arabic alphabet know, Arabic, Urdu, etc. are perpetually written in cursive, so to speak, and so along with learning the names of all the letters, you have to figure out how to string them along together, cutting off bits here and there to make them flow. Thus I am again in third grade or below, writing awkward loops and dots. As Dr. Ali points out to me, certain lines must be visualized so that the ain or the jīm have flat stomachs, not pot-bellies. My saving grace is that Indians speaking Urdu are not so particular about the four types of zs as are the Arabs. I can resign myself to practicing my aspirated bha and correcting my “peculiar” handwriting.

All this is supposed to premise the difference between country people and city people, which was introduced in Friday’s lesson. Among the 51 letters I get to worry about connecting to each other, alif, dal, re, and waw don’t connect to anyone. Rather, they will connect, but only of their own accord—they are “city people.” Not any be off the street can saunter up to an alif and expect instant rapport. You have to approach them from the right direction, as my professor so aptly described on Friday, before drilling me with long and short vowels. What, then, would I do, if I were an Arabic letter, with my current identity crisis between the city and the country? Probably become a ء.

Now, as much enjoyment as I get from telling stories about Charlotte living on my ceiling and becoming a hamza due to identity crisis, I’ve received the question, “I’ve been keeping up with your blog, but I still don’t know what’s going on with you…” A perfectly valid statement. Sending me personalized emails is one way of getting me to drop the tongue-in-cheek attitude about alphabets and open up, but of course I don’t have the time to write thirty of them. So here goes…

I’ve begun a so-called “inquiry into values and morals”. Morals I should know a lot about being a religion major, although Robert Pirsig will undoubtedly have a alternate philosophy on the matter with Lila, his sequel to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. [Side note here: that previous sentence had about thirty commas and/or clauses in it at one point, until I axed them at the insistence of Professor Stearns’ voice in my head. Those of you under the influence of his red pen will understand this] Morals, however, have made me throroughly sickened. Oftentimes I can’t think for the sheer amount of morals jockeying for position in my head, and India has done nothing to weed out the crowd. Instead, the confusion created by such chaos has forced me into a state of paring down everything I know to the very essence of it all—Jesus, and music. Music which was gifted to me by God in the first place anyway. In which case I am left with values which are theoretically useless in everyday life because as Mr. Pirsig so aptly likes to explain, they are impossible to define properly. Key example to this was my entrance essay to Middlebury College, in which I was asked to describe my values, and how they had influenced my life in a particular incident. I had such a time trying to put a name to one value, let alone come up with a particular incident in which that value had affected my actions, that I spouted off some poetic nonsence that thankfully the admissions officers didn’t throw out with the recycling.

Now before you knee-jerk on me and protest that of course Jesus isn’t theoretically useless in everyday life, let me explain. First off, I use the word “theoretically” because the “practical” and “theoretical” uses of the Gospel are two entirely separate matters. Theological or philosophical applications of Jesus and his life create an entire canon completely without use on a moment-by-moment basis. The theology and philosophy of Jesus is what gives my professors their jobs, and what I spend all my time reading and analyzing and spitting out into concise and eloquent papers free of extraneous commas and clauses. Yet all the philosophizing about why Jesus said this or that creates an underlying sense of values, not morals. Values of life and love and humility and repentance and justice and so forth. Morals, however, are what take a value like “life” and reduce it to the question of whether or not one should get an abortion. It is exactly this debate about whether or not one should get an abortion that I am sick of—the debate to finalize the moral ends of Christ, who if nothing else scolded the Pharisees for doing just that with the Torah. However, when I reduce my life to a bunch of abstract values, I am left with the question of what to do in the next five minutes, the next five hours, the next five years. To value life presents infinite choices when I walk down the streets, whether in Hyderabad, India or Middlebury, Vermont. I am thus faced with the problem of morals, which take care of the everyday decisions for you, while also removing the relationship and adventure from life. Thus my inner debate over values and morals, which in a few words, is what is “really going on with me.” [side note: to inadequately sum up a whole book, Pirsig goes on about how Quality is the essence of all reality, and so on and so forth, which somehow unifies values and morals. Which is why I titled this post with Quality with a capital Q, simply because I like the label and I’m still being tongue-in-cheek.]

Anyhow, you can have fun poking at my inadequate definitions and logic, and I’ll go back to reading Proverbs and Lila.