India II

Here are some of my thoughts from our second and third months in India. We are safe, happy, and healthy, and we are loving this gift.  (We decided to stay).  We will be back in the US on December 22.

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September 16, 2011

Perhaps it's just plain selfishness.

I've always had a desire to want to live and be abroad (the pangs are especially loud during the long and arduous stretch of teaching leading up to Thanksgiving break). You see, I am a wanderlust at heart, always seeking to go and be away from…wherever I am. I think some it is attachment issues; I'm not attached to much. Some of it is a love for learning. Some of it is a need for novelty. Most of it, I am seeing, is just selfishness.

The wanderlust made me discontent and conflicted for much of my 20's. Every year I wondered When can I go? Where can I go? Why not now? It starts out as the urge to go and save the world, blindly, boldly. With some work experience and maturity it turns into how can I use my skills for the betterment of those less fortunate, a somewhat nobler crusade. As time starts to tick faster and priorities get resifted, it becomes a matter of where and when I might find someone to go with me. The needs of the world, it seems, are busting at the seams and time is running out.

I found someone, as you know, and we came. But as I'm here now, not doing much and not adding much good to the world, I wonder, is it all just for me? 

i was chatting with a Long Beach friend who is now living and working in Beijing. We're both enjoying this expat life that seems to make our friends' envious -- cheap street food, cross-cultural blunders to laugh and blog about, new sights and sounds to decipher each day --  but if they came and saw, or stayed for more than a few days on a visit, they'd see it's quite shallow most of the time. We mostly are wading around at the safe end. It's selfish, not sacrificial; inward, not idealistic.

The selfishness dresses itself in several forms. I don't have to deal with America too much, and hardly at all if I chose to. I don't have to deal with the Daily Grind; my days are spent deciding what adventure I want to have. I get to disentangle myself from my life back home and disentangle myself from the messiness of other people's lives. I don't have to think about Saving Schools or Safe Streets or Stop The Deportations or anything I would otherwise feel compelled to work for.

This life is selfish because it's an escape.

I've chosen to live with a community of people in Oakland who have mostly intentionally chosen to live in East Oakland, in an area that feels in many ways just as foreign and just as full of novelty. I wonder, is my motivation there this same selfish experience-seeking? What do I have to show that it isn't?

* * *

Once a week, sometimes two (or three), Diana and I get our weekly dose of luxury. We are, after all, just two more spoiled middle-class Americans who need our injections of comfort.

Today that comfort was found at Fusion 9, a fancy western-style restaurant near City Center in Hyderabad. Like other upscale places we've been to, everybody inside was beautiful. And rich. It's like a whole different India from the one we usually see. On our walks through S R Nagar junction to and from church, or to and from the tiffin stand, we see a bustling, struggling, smelly India, and usually 4-5 men urinating on the sidewalk too. But inside these air-conditioned havens, it's a totally different India that we experience -- the kind that is obviously there, but almost hidden. 

It reminds me of a similar insight I had a few years ago in Phnom Penh -- "My feet are not dirty." I am glad that Diana and I have chosen to live in the non-expat area. There is a mix of young families and throngs of rural migrants living here in hostels attending Hyderabad's cadre of tech schools. Our feet are definitely a little dirtier.

Still, there's something in our consumption that is telling. It was a pretty expensive lunch, $35 for the two of us; why do we not feel so bad about it? 

September 18, 2011

Diana's favorite awkward question to ask while in India is "Will you have an arranged marriage or a love marriage?"  Don't worry, people seem to understand the intent of the question and are generally willing to answer whatever awkward or probing questions she asks (though this could be the result of p90x and our imposing statures). They also ask us all kinds of intrusive questions - How much do you weigh? Why is your hair falling out? Is it true that Western girls are easy? How much was your wedding? Japan? 

I suppose Diana is just reciprocating the terms of endearment.

Despite what we romantics would like to think, arranged marriages still seem to be the norm. It's a bit idiosyncratic, given the gargantuan film industry that champions true love and the quest to find 'the one" ("the one" being the one whom your parents approve of). Most of Diana's informal survey respondents are opting for an arranged marriage and they seem contented about it. But most of them also watch movies.

Diana grilled a young woman named (er, we can't pronounce her name) at church about this, and she gave some interesting insight into the matter:

"If we pick," she said, "then we might make a mistake. If we let God pick, then all will be well."

That's some faith.

I asked her why she wanted to get married then, if not for love. She responded, "For partnership, to take care of each other."

Perspective.

In many ways this is so different from our approach, which in comparison seems rather self-focused.  We grow up wondering "Who is the person that will complete me?" and "Who is The One for me?"

Our friends Reni and Jaya said they easily found each other on an Indian Christian matrimony website. They felt it was time to get married so they logged on and after one face-to-face meeting, they were married. Reni says that they did talk on the phone for a bit before making wedding arrangements, during which he asked her if she knew how to make a good dal. She left out one key ingredient, the dal, but it was no matter to him. It was the right time to begin a partnership and so they embarked on one.

Getting married seems so much easier here in India (minus the whole our-family-is-going-into-debt-to-pay-the dowry thing); the search so much less dramatic. I think it's the dating that is the stressor in the US. Most of that time we are dating because we don't know what we want. There are non-negotiables and negotiables, measures of compatibility, hopes and desires, awkwardness to overcome..so much to consider and navigate through. Reni and Jaya hardly dated, and they didn't have to -- they clearly knew each others' intentions and future aspirations without even having to try hard. They knew what they wanted, and now they seem happy because they found it.

On the surface, American Love seems harder, because stupid Hollywood and stupid advertising (damn you, Don Draper!) make marriage about so much more than just partnership and companionship (Don: "Our job is to make people want things"). Now it's wrapped up in romance, destiny, and perfection - our own personal fairy tales (damn you too, Taylor Swift!). (Sorry Taylor, I don't mean it like that). They tell us what we ought to want and cannot live without, and so we want it and look for it.

Of course love and love stories have been written and lived throughout the ages all around the world -- I'm not saying love isn't real. I'm in love. But seeing it the Indian way just makes me wonder who has the fuller picture.

* * *

I got my first Indian acting gig!  … in a church skit.  I am playing a kung fu hero. They expressedly asked for 'hi-yahs" and "waaaahhhhhs" in addition to high kicks and fast punches. FML.

September 21, 2011

The power went out last night for 3 hours.  We made dinner in the dark and then prayed for you.  You're welcome.

At first I was highly irritated by the power going out.  It happens once or twice a day when you least expect it. I grumble, frustrated with the interruption, but much like all the other chaos we experience it makes me stop and think about my heart. The power cuts off and I am forced to just wait, be content and find other things to ponder. It's freeing in a way, to sever the tether we have to the online world. We can just tend to the things we need and not worry about the things that we think need us.

* * *

Sometimes when Diana and I walk around outside, we like to shout out inappropriate things in English really really loudly, a la (500) Days of Summer.  Is is bad if no one can understand?

* * *

Babu just returned from Chennai, having been on-location for a film shoot.  Apparently, the movie's heroine, a beautiful woman from Mumbai, has taken an interest in Babu. She even invited him to hang out with her at the beach (outrage! scandal!), the meet-up culminating in a 3-hour walk along the beach in Pondicherry (there was some kind of third wheel, but this part of the story was not clear).

Diana just had to ask: "Will you have a love marriage with Priya?!"

"No, no, no!" said Babu. "She wouldn't marry someone like me."

That's sad, but true, because there's still a quasi-caste system that is alive and well in India. Despite love and attraction and the virulent hip-shaking of Bollywood heroes and heroines, name, sign, and skin tone remain the trumps. I can tell Babu is a bit lovestruck, and it seems Priya is curious. Perhaps it's the thrill of impossible love that is the exciting part, the grand dream of what never really could be.

I wonder if there's just as strong a "caste-system" in the U.S., just unobserved, underlying, invisible.  I mean, it seems like we generally end up with people who are very similar to us in background and education, and you hardly see real Cinderella stories. Then again, how did a nerd like me end up with someone like…well, never mind.

* * *

I generally will give to beggars that we come across on the street if they are elderly or physically disabled.  But gosh, there are a lot.  A LOT. What to do?

September 24, 2011

Indian church has been a blessing: "You are crowned King of India, you are crowned Lord of all; who can deny you are crowned Lord of all?"

I haven't been able to put my finger on what I'm finding so freeing about being in India. The church we go to is so refreshing in it's joviality and exuberance, it's childlike faith. 

Diana, a master cutter-of-the-heart, said, "It's because you have nothing to complain about."  Ouch.

But it's true. My life in the US is full or responsibility and expectation, the kind I put on myself and the kind others put on me. And what better way to shirk off some of that pressure than to complain?  I complain about work.  I complain about church.  I complain about the government. I complain about complaining.

She's right. I'm finding such peace here because I've stopped complaining. For the most part. 

October 2, 2011

Happy Birthday Ghandi-ji!

It's unfortunate that on this national day of commemorating Ghandi, there is still incessant strife and conflict here in Hyderabad. For the past several weeks, a group of activists from the Telangana region of Andhra Pradesh have been organizing a massive strike and protest against the state government. They want to for a separate state of Telangana, which would include the city of Hyderabad, because they feel a lack of political representation and they feel like the resources from their region are being co-opted for use in other areas of Andhra Pradesh. A separate state was also promised to them during the whole we-Brits-are-leaving-India-now-so-let's-carve-out-some-arbitrary-regions period. 

The activists have called for a Bandh, or strike, which has some hundreds of thousands of government employees not going to work, including teachers, bus drivers and power plant workers. This has affected the productivity of the entire city and has left millions of people frustrated.

For our neighborhood, the power cuts out each day from 11am-12pm and then again from 3pm-4pm.  At first it was inconvenient, because we didn't know when we would be inconvenienced, but now that we know what will happen at least we can plan around it. Can't say the same for businesses, government programs, and schools. There has to be a better way.

* * *

Where is the love?

My hip hop dance class is challa awesome. I try my best to keep up with the gangly teen boys as our teacher Raju dances his heart out to the latest Tollywood film hits. It's Rs.1000 ($20) for the whole month, SIX classes a week.  We sweat a lot and the callouses are huge. We dance barefoot, of course.

It's interesting to be in this Indian style hip-hop class. Replete with flailing arms, hip thrusting, fist-pumping, chest-beating -- the movements evoke passion and romance more than anything else. I love it. It's so different from the American style, which, grimace-faced, is meant more to impress, intimidate, and sell milkshakes. There, it's identity-induced swagger; here, it's passion-infused undulations (fully dressed undulations, of course).  

There's such freedom and confidence in their movements, and my teacher constantly tells me to "More enjoy!" (He also called me heavy a few times.  I think it means something else to him). I guess I've still got my stone-cold mad dogg and sharp, precise movements. At least I haven't started dancing with my seductive lower lip bite yet. The children would surely be scared.

October 5, 2011

Telugu blunder of the day: There were plenty of lady-giggles when Diana introduced me to an Indian woman at Bible study, saying to her "This is your husband."  I swear I saw a flash of panic in her eyes before I heard the laughter.

October 8, 2011

Living Local

Everywhere we need to go to get everything we need is pretty much walkable. The grocery store and a farmer's market are just a few small blocks away (don't think Lake Merritt Farmer's market, think, the parking lot between Lupita's Pupuseria on Foothill and the market next door. Add wooden carts. And cows). My dance class in one block over from our apartment. Church and a nice cafe are 15 minutes down the S R Nagar junction, and in every nook and cranny are tiffins, mess halls, chaiwallahs, beauty parlors, bakeries, fruit juice stands, and meat shops -- everything we need is within a short walk and a hand's reach. Will try to do this more when we are back stateside.

Diana has often said she feels 'limited' here, mostly because as a woman she has to dress a certain way, but also because without a car or a motorbike, we're left to walk, ride the bus, or haggle for auto rickshaws to take us where we would like to go. 

I happen to like the limitation. It helps me see how easy it is to be more simple, but also how hard it is to say no to comfort and convenience. It helps me see that life can be lived on so much less.

Everyone brings their own canvas bags or reused plastic bags to the grocery store. Even the produce gets dumped in without extra plastic produce bags needing to be used. Most things come in plastic pouches, not boxes or containers, and a whole neighborhood's trash fits in but a few dumpsters, every reusable scrap and recyclable sifted out each day by recyclers. There is no need for paper products, including paper towels and toilet paper. And of course, what's the point of silverware when you have dextrous fingers? Or take-out boxes when there's plenty of newspaper? Green to the extreme.

Indians and other people in developing countries are innovative in way we Americans are not. Their limitation fosters frugality and a creative approach to meet the needs of dally life. It's something we desperately need to mimic, because where we see limitation, they see opportunity, even in a plastic bag.

October 12, 2011

Life is hard. I'm beginning to see that now.

I have never really known what it is to have a hard life. My parents worked hard ever since they left Cambodia for the US, making it possible for my sister and I to grow up in a stable, comfortable place. I excelled in school and went for almost nothing to one of the best universities in the world. There, I had the luxury of time and resources to be curious, be risk-taking, be creative, and invest in my future, both relationally and academically (a little less so on the academic side of things). I went through an amazing teacher training program, the loans of which have been mostly paid off by my commitment to urban education and teaching math. I easily got a job in the city and school I wanted to work in, and even though the work was intensely insane, I would not have traded those years of goodness for anything.

My life has not been hard.

I have gotten to travel the world, and to see the beauty of people and places in all the corners of the globe. Each trip and adventure has broadened my worldview and my understanding of what it means to be a human here on this planet. As an American, I have the privilege of being able to go to most of the places in this world, no questions asked. With just a passport and a credit card, I can do anything and go anywhere.  And I can bring back a trove of memories and souvenirs to remind me how awesome my life is.

My life has not been hard.

I have hardly been unemployed in the last 6 and half years since graduating, and even now, living a half a world away, I have 3 part-time jobs that pay for my life of leisure and soul-searching in India. I have a wonderful wife, we had the wedding and honeymoon of our dreams, and I live each day thinking "surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life…"

My life has not been hard.

But I'm starting to see that life really is hard. For many. For billions. Even for those closest to us.

I'm seeing that life gets harder as we get older -- more expectations, more responsibility, more mess -- it's the force of entropy nudging everything towards disarray. Maybe now in my 30th year the Idealism of my 20s is finally meeting Reality, its best frenemy. We have work to do, good to do, mouths to feed, relationships to reconcile, people to care for, and is it ever going to end? No.

Look at me, complaining already when it's only just begun. Lord, have mercy.

October 13, 2011

"If you don't mind…Your stomach is very big."  Thanks, Sundar. Though I am certain he was describing me using the common Indian euphemism for an ambitious, wealthy and extremely handsome man.  Yes, that's what he was trying to communicate. 

* * *

We have started volunteering at an organization called Kriti, which works to provide healthcare, education and vocational training to people from the slums near Film Nagar in Hyderabad. I'm also helping to write a business plan for an organization called Amaidi. It's a fiesta!

It blows my mind that there are so many things we don't know about this world, like how many people are on it and where they are. Even in India alone, hordes of people go on living undocumented, unnoticed. If they died, it could be as if they never existed at all. 

There is a new program called Aadhar, which is trying to give an identity to every person in India, using fingerprinting and a unique retinal scan. This way, people can get the services and basic supplies they need through government support programs, without worries of corruption, fraud, or embezzlement. It's going to take something like a decade to get everyone scanned. What to do in the meantime?

October 17, 2011

Busy again! As we're over the hump of of our time in India, things seem to be picking up in preparation for our return.  I need to find a job. We need a place to live. We have families to deal with. 

It's so interesting that life quickly returns to it's normal pace, or at least, I do. There's more reflection here for me, I'm sure.

* * *

Feeling nostalgic for the Bay, we brought our own mug to get chai and then walked to the farmer's market. It was just a pile of rotting produce. Fail. 

  

October 28, 2011

Busier than I thought! I guess I am who I am :(

 * * *

Diwali is the most dangerous holiday ever. Celebrating light and life and family, Hindus light oil lamps, candles, lanterns, and best of all, firecrackers to brighten up the night. It does however make walking down the street feel like walking through a crossfire (made me a bit homesick for Oakland). During Diwali, everyone, young and old, is lighting up (not like Oakland). Crackers are tossed into the street and rockets shot into the sky. It is festive and smoky and loud. The lights are beautiful though, and the people especially radiant. Incredible India indeed.

* * *

I've had an epiphany about my work. To take on a metaphor:

We treat the wounds. We are not the healers.

We can stop the bleeding. We can't prevent all the wounds.

We are critical in the healing process, applying the salves we know, but full healing is beyond our capabilities.

In my profession, the wounds are big and many. I've tried for years to treat them as best as I can, trying to be a good math teacher, trying to help build an amazing and effective urban school, and trying my best to be a kind, gentle, loving presence. Some wounds have healed, and some haven't. It's frustrating, of course, to see hurt that seems to have no end, and more frustrating to see what you've tried not work.

As I ponder my future plans, I'm realizing that I can't solve all the problems of urban education, because the problems stem from the human heart. It's there in all of us -- the propensity to devalue others and withhold dignity, the ease with which we choose not to love. These start in the heart and take root in our thoughts. They live in us so they live in the things we create - school systems are but one of our failed designs.

I says this not be hopeless, but to be realistic. I cannot approach my line of work with a savior mentality. I can just treat the wounds as best as I can, communicating value, restoring dignity, and choosing to love. I can be a teacher, a school leader, a reformer, and anything else I want, but I can't be the solution, just a part of it. Ultimately, knowing I am not that is comforting. I can get to the work of treatment and not worry so much about the work of full healing. That will take a lot more than a bandage.

* * *

"Why do you stand here looking into the sky?" (Acts 1:11)

* * *

I wonder if having this open time in India has killed my need to do work. It is kind of what I was hoping for during this sabbatical of sorts -- I was doing way too much and addicted to it. Maybe it hasn't fully killed it, but it sure has given me some valuable perspective. Work doesn't define us. Work is hard. We will have to work for the rest of our lives in order to support ourselves and our families. It is ok if this is terrifying. Ecclesiastes provides the most comfort in this: To enjoy work is a gift of God. 

Now that I've seen what a simpler life looks and feels like, I don't really want to go back to all that.

Stupid curse.

* * *

Some photos!

India

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These are just some thoughts and reflections on life, spirituality and culture from our first six weeks living in Hyderabad, India.  Mostly they are questions and wonderings based on our day-to-day experiences.  More to come later.

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August 5, 2011

After a long overnight wait at LAX and a wunderbar layover in Frankfurt (and a fish sauce-related fiasco), Diana and I have arrived in Hyderabad, India, and are ready to start our lives here together. It may sound unusual, disastrous even, to choose to spend our first 6 months of marriage living out of a suitcase and traveling the world, but it's what seemed best for us and I am confident we will learn a lot about marriage and life together while we are here.

Diana's friend Babu picked us up from the airport late at night and graciously gave us his studio apartment to stay in for the night. 'Studio apartment' doesn't quite fit the bill - it was more like a room attached to someone else's house. Needless to say it was a quick and dirty welcome to life in India. i remember when i was here a year ago in much more comfortable means. There was little to complain about because I did not have to confront anything disheartening. This time around, right after disembarking, bugs, floor, and buckets.

We made it through the night and the next morning met the landlady, who was, as I recall, elegantly wrapped Brahmin-style in her sari - a "paka indian woman," Babu exalted. Her demeanor paralleled her regal look. A namaskaram with one hand and a graceful head bobble reassured me that there is indeed beauty here waiting to greet me.

* * *

Babu showed us to our flat in Kalyan Nagar, or Vengal Rao Nagar, or Ameerpet. Without addresses, we are still not exactly sure where it is. It is a simple 2-bedroom apartment featuring both a western toilet and a squatty potty - our first home together! It's sparsely put together with mediocre craftsmanship, and every window and terrace is caged, but it's now home. After a while, the cage is just a part of the view.

After settling in Babu zipped me around on his motorbike picking up supplies for our flat. One errand involved a precarious journey where I held a portable gas stove and two tanks full of natural gas (Indian Natural Gas, as Babu reminded me several times) while he threaded us through the insane traffic.  Insane actually doesn't quite do it justice. Fortunately, we didn't explode in flames and now we can cook!

With a bed, a fridge, an Indian natural gas stove, 2 plastic lounge chairs, a suitcase-turned-coffee table, and internet on the way, we are ready for newlywed domesticity!

 * * *

The Drunken Watchmen:

Telugu is a really flowy language; it's hard to tell when one word ends and another begins. Even diana, who has had 4 months of lessons, finds it hard to hear the crucial word endings. Some scholars have said it has the most syllables per minute of any language! We both realized that it is especially difficult to understand when the speaker is drunk (and even harder when you know but five words).

Aporo is our watchman. (I'll have to admit, it's kind of nice having someone get your drinking water, take your trash out and handle your bills. We haven't gone to the extreme of having him wash and iron our clothes though).  He came knocking at about 9pm on our first night and made all sorts of gestures trying to communicate with me -- his two hands alternating up-and-down. Do i want coffee? Do i want tea? Am i washing dishes? Doing my laundry? Do I juggle? I couldn't really piece together what he was saying, that is, until he rubbed his thumb, index and middle fingers together in the universal dolla-dolla-bills-y'all gesture. 

He wanted money.

I was a bit taken aback by this direct supposition. Who would ask for money right after meeting someone, especially someone you are going to see everyday for the net five months? I gave him 130 rupees (about $3) because I sort of understood that he wanted us to tip him for helping move our suitcases into the apartment earlier that day. But then I got confused by other gestures - did he want money for cleaning our floor (which was not clean, by the way), or did he want money because he showed me where to wash and dry our clothes? After i gave him the 130 rupees, he wanted more! I said no, and he dragged me down to find a neighbor who could translate. 

Downstairs, I asked the neighbor what Aporo wanted, and why he wanted it. When he explained to her, she shook her head and said 'chalu!' - enough!  (six words now!  and a useful one, at that). She told me he wanted a tip for all the help he gave, but added that he was drunk and that I should not mind the demands of a drunk man. With that, Aporo beckoned me back into the elevator and showed me back up to our apartment.

As it turns out, part of the gesturing was that he wanted to know if we wanted milk in the morning. Cow udders!

* * *

Hello, Poverty

After a month of honeymooning in Europe, and being in reclusive domesticity in Oakland and Long Beach, it's been quite a re-introduction to the face of poverty. While we live in a rather quiet area of hyderabad, the poor are everywhere. Some are just downstairs, sleeping on a grass mat in the parking lot, making sure I'm safe and have enough water to drink...

August 6, 2011

I was overwhelmed at Big Bazaar last night. 

i made the same observation last year and i'm going to say it again: There are HELLA people in India. Everywhere. There are people everywhere. Even in the Big Bazaar, a Super-Walmart type place, there were people in every aisle, every row, looking at every product that was for sale. Where do all these people come from?! Just imagine, over a billion people in a place just a third the size of the US!  Three times as many people in one-third the space!

August 9, 2011

It's only been six days but I feel much much better about being here. I am starting to like it -- the different environs, learning a new culture, figuring out this puzzle (to the outsider) that is India. 

* * *

i almost cried at church last sunday. during the second worship song, which was led by zealous worship leaders who didn't care they were off beat, I began to feel that overwhelming feeling. It was gratitude - for all that God has blessed me with, and for all the joy that I could see in the worshippers' faces. Even though they were here, a small group of believers in a primarily Hindu and Muslim world, they loved God and were devoted to him. That's what I love about the church outside of the US. It feels, more so than it does stateside, like a real haven -- a beacon of light and hope in a time and place where idols are real and in-your-face. The need for God is palpable.

I held back the tears, as I always do, but perhaps by the end of this sabbatical I will be able to let them run free. It is nice to know that I am moved still by the grace of God, and I hope that what I experienced this past Sunday was but the welling and not the catharsis.

August 10-17: Goa and Kerala

We loved going to Kerala with our friends Greg and Wendy from Oakland. The houseboat cruise through the backwaters in Alleppey was absolutely stunning, but I did have some mixed feelings about what it actually was. It felt, to be honest, like the Jungle Cruise in Disneyland. There we were, on a giant houseboat all to our selves, three Indian staff and 4 Americans waiting to be waited on.

While the backwaters are an exquisite natural phenomenon, getting to see "real Keralan life" (as the pamphlets and brochures suggest) was a little awkward. As the boat cruised along, we watched people bathe themselves in the river, fish for food, wash their dishes, coddle their kids, adjust their lungis, talk to their neighbors, and commence all sorts of daily life activities. I guess it was normal, except for the fact that every few minutes, boats of tourists would cruise by and gawk and wave and stare and snap snazzy digital photos, deleting the ones that are perhaps too real.

It was life on display, and though I know this is the bread and butter of the tourist industry, something about this blatant voyeurism felt uncomfortable and overly intrusive. I just hope that the smiles and warm gestures we tried to give were enough to communicate our appreciation and gratitude for them sharing their beautiful slice of earth with us. 

August 21, 2011

i've been learning a lot about simplicity, and I am glad that diana and I are starting off our married lives together on this note. We make do with the little we have (household goods), and are eating pretty simply. We find joy in the simple pleasures - reading books, cooking, cleaning, praying, taking basic care of ourselves.  It really is liberating and freeing, and so completely different from our lives back in California. It's funny because while I thought we lived pretty simply then, we actually didn't. We frequented cafes and Yelp-endorsed Oakland/SF eats. We ate good, quality food, and spent our time working hard and playing hard. There was little time for God, and taking care of ourselves had to be scheduled in. I thrived in that life, being the workaholic that I am, but i am beginning to think that I thrived because I had to and knew no alternative...

* * *

Jesus is revered here. I think that in a land filled with other gods, the words "Name above all names" actually means something. When you can see the spirited attempts to worship and pray to other gods, your worship of the One True God means so much more. I wish that we approached Jesus with the same certainty and reverence back in the US. Here, they endure, no, RELISH, the two-and-half-hour church service, while we would start checking our phones the minute it goes over 1 hour. In the US, our god is time, and we grovel to it; even God is limited when we don't have the time for Him...

* * *

We had dreams of becoming vegetarians during out time in India, but it's just too painful. Today is Sunday so we had chicken at Bowl'O'China.  Oh, chicken I love you.

August 23, 2011

In many ways, simplicity is a luxury. Being simple takes time. I don't have time in the US, so it's hard to be simple. Ponder that.

* * *

Outsourced

I work as an online algebra teacher coach for a US company - a US job paying in US dollars. It's convenient because I just work for a few hours a day in the mornings here and it's enough to cover our expenses. I troubleshoot with teachers and coach them on developing lesson plans and curriculum for their math courses. It's a sweet gig.

It's strange to walk around Hyderabad and see all the ads for outsourced work. It reminds me just how small our world really is. Though I'm not technically outsourced, the online work I'm doing makes me wonder about the thousands of call center workers around me in Hyderabad and Bangalore, who also deal with US issues but get paid in Indian Rupees. I've heard all kinds of complaints and stories about call center works getting berated on the phone. Americans are not nice when it comes to getting what they want. Fortunately, the teachers I work with don't know I'm in India; my perfect American English disguises me. 

Most of you have probably experienced a customer service call with someone who is clearly in India. The call is transferred and with that first "Guud Ahf-tah-noon, Sah" you're even more irate about the service than you were before the call -- I'm guilty myself. But really, do we need to be so upset that someone on the other side of the world is trying to help you with your problem?  Shouldn't we be appreciative of such kindness spanning the globe?

What I've often had to remind myself while I've been here is that my English is not the correct English. We may think this indian English is broken English, but really, it's just Indian English and they have been speaking it for hundreds of years. It's beautiful and melodic, full of vim and character. These workers are doing their job and they shouldn't need to be berated for their accents. 

* * *

Our Culture of Distrust

When people from the west travel, there's so much distrust. I've found India to be full of honest people who have a lot of integrity. They just want to welcome us, and make us feel at home, and show off the country they are so proud of.  Often times I think that we travel to places and think they are seedy or full of scammers and pickpockets because we bring with us our own culture of distrust. We are fearful and anxious about safety and security not because they make it so. No, we make it so.

September 1, 2011

When I think about my life in the US, the word that comes to mind is chaotic. That's ironic because here in India, just walking down the street is a near-death experience, with auto rickshaws, tiny Tata cars, motorcycles, and large buses zooming within inches of your frame. Gaudily painted cargo trucks seem to accelerate at us when we try to cross the street, and if there is a gap between vehicles, fill it.

Diana and I have talked about returning to the US early, and my first feeling is one of panic, because I have made myself a life of chaos and frenzy in the US, much of it due to the culture in which we live. We are slaves to our work, and slaves to the money that we need to make in order to feed ourselves, entertain ourselves (or escape from the selves we've made?), and secure for ourselves a comfortable future life. In the hustle and bustle of the day, even the profound beauty and meaning of the most basic tasks get lost in the humdrum of life moving forward. What basic needs are there than to eat, clothe yourself, wash, and be with people? Why do the sacredness of those rituals get lost so easily in our full full full full days?

I am relishing this gift of simple living.  For so long in the US, I thought simple living was refraining from material luxuries and comforts - not consuming too much and not wasting too much. Now I see a simpler side of simple living, one that is focused more on enjoying what is basic and essential in life - finding contentment in the act of living, and not living for contentment.

September 4, 2011

Mostly Questions…

Our friend lives in Naandi Nagar, aka "Banjara Hills Weaker Section".  I noticed the painted verbiage as our autowallah pulled into the bus stop. There it was, announcing to all arrivers, both visitors and dwellers, that you were now in a "weaker section" of the city. 

Of course, in my hotly egalitarian American mindset, this sort of labeling made me upset. How can you just call people weaker like that? Isn't it completely discriminatory and degrading? 

On top of this, I have been looking in to volunteering with some relief organizations and many of them describe the work they do with the "backwards villages" and the "backwards people" inside those villages. Backwards does not seem like a nice term.

Aaravind Adiga, in his novel The White Tiger (fantastic read, by the way), describes rural villages as 'the Darkness' and rural-urban migrants as 'from the Darkness." Is this really what the perception is? Why are people so accepting of the weaker-darness-backwardsness in their country?

September 5, 2011

Question of the season: Why was my life in the U.S. so chaotic?!?!

September 7, 2011

I have been thinking more about this weaker-darkness-backwardness (see Sept 4).  Aporo, our oft-drunk watchmen (see our first day, Aug 5), again asked us for money as we were heading out for the day. The reek of his whiskey breath clarified his intentions for me and we just kept going. But what bothers me, and has bothered me, is the complete shamelessness with which this begging happens. He is going to see us everyday for the next 4 months, and he works for our landlord. Is it not totally inappropriate to ask us repeatedly for money? Apparently not.  Apparently this is what is expected...

I think this may be the consequence of the weaker-darkness-backwardness. If people are labeled something and told repeatedly what they are, they become it. They stand by it. They operate how they are expected to operate. Aporo is not weak or dark or backwards because he is weak or dark or backwards - he is those things because his people told him he was those things, and he sadly has not questioned it.

When I became a teacher it was motivated by this same injustice, played out in black and white in the US. At a World Impact Oakland community barbecue I was playing with some young African-American children when one of them ran into a picket fence, staining his arm with a swath of white paint. He asked me to help him clean it off in the laundry room. As I searched for some soap and started to help him rinse, he said, "Help me get this off, even though I want to be white."

"What?"

"I want to be white."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because black people are dumb."

He ran off at that point, ready to go back to playing. I watched the white pigment swirl down the drain, wanting to un-hear what I just heard.

It was the same incomprehension with Aporo. As I wrote before, I just could not understand why or how he could ask us for money so unashamedly. As I have seen and learn and come to understand so much about this broken world of ours, I see that the things that do not make sense to us are often the things in us that do not make sense. We do this kind of demeaning and debasing each day - in our words and actions, and yes, I'll say it, in our votes and consumption and politics. When we see the seeming irrationality of the illogical around us, we wonder HOW!? WHY? forgetting that it was us all along.

We intend to give Aporo a big tip in the end when we leave, but in the meantime, I want to treat him as he doesn't expect to be treated…ideas?

September 13, 2011

So many things to write about on our trip through more rural Andhra Pradesh. Leaving Hyderabad on Friday night, we went to the Nampally Train Station to catch the Narsapur Express to Narsapur, a small town near the Godavari River delta. Babu, diana's telugu tutor-turned-friend had arranged a 4 night/3day trip to his hometown, and brought along his good friend and fellow aspiring telugu film actor Naveen.

From the moment we got to the train station, I knew we were in for an adventure. Babu, who kept insisting that our reservations were confirmed, failed to tell us that we were in fact waitlisted for seats, at WL#23-26 for that matter!

Diana: "So…we're not confirmed"

Babu: "Yes, tickets are confirmed"

Diana: "But we don't have seats"

Babu: "No seats, train is full"

Diana: "So our seats are not confirmed"

Babu: "Yes, confirmed"

Actually, to get the maximum effect read the conversation as such:

Diana: "So…we're not confirmed" [bobble bobble]

Babu: "Yes, tickets are confirmed" [bobble bobble]

Diana: "But we don't have seats" [wobble wobble]

Babu: "No seats, train is full" [bobble bobble]

Diana: "So our seats are not confirmed" [wobble wobble]

Babu: "Yes, confirmed" [bobble bobble bobble bobble]

Babu and Naveen made us sit down while they ran around the station trying to find a Ticket Collector (TC) who could help us get seats. At one point about 20 minutes before the train was set to leave, we all just found an empty berth and sat in it. They said we were fine. That is, until the TC came aboard and yelled at us to get off.

Then things got desperate. With about 7 minutes left to departure, Babu pleaded with the TC on the platform.  No!

Then he made me plead with the TC.  No!

Then Babu went up to him again. After some more intense bobbling (I get confused because intense bobbling seems to start during both times of excitement and anger, so i couldn't tell what the TC was communicating), the TC relented and Babu told us to get on the train.

We sat in the same empty berth as before and Babu told us that the TC let us onboard because he had conjured up a sob-story about how we were two Americans visiting India and were building an orphanage in his hometown. Look, we're so kindhearted! Babu convinced him because we absolutely had to get on the train to go to the opening of the orphanage (My apologies for adding to the bad rep of overseas orphanages, because we are in fact not building an orphanage). Babu is an actor at heart (he loves sentimental Telugu films), and the TC was evidently moved by such heroics.

As Babu recounted the story to us, we hear a beckoning call from the next berth: "Babu!"  It was the TC.  Whoops!  Hope he doesn't understand English! Babu darted over and we tried to put our best American-savior faces on lest the TC come and have a second look at our questionably-natured selves.

When babu returned he had a sour look on his face, and made a gesture all too familiar to us in India - thumb, index and middle fingers rubbing a greasy wheel - the TC wanted Rs.2000 for his efforts (that's a little over $40). but "shhh!" babu told us, the TC didn't want the foreigners to know.

Now I've had to bribe my fair share of public officials (Tijuana, Accra, Phnom Penh, Oakland? to name a few), but I love the added twist of "Don't tell the foreigners!" What, did he think Babu would just have an extra 2000 rupees laying around? That's about 10% of his monthly income!

We paid up. The 2000 Rupees bought us the right to sit on the porter's bed by the toilet, outside the A/C cabin. Diana and I were prepared for a night of olfactory onslaught but in the end the TC did do us a favor and I don't feel cheated.  After all, we were NOT confirmed on this train in the first place. It is strange though that after an hour of squatting by the potty, our 2000 rupees managed to find us 4 perfectly comfortable sleeping births in the A/C cabin.

 * * *

We arrived in the early morning and Babu was so excited to show us what essentially was (no hard feelings here) a big dirty river. Diana and I tried to smile and repeatedly say, "It's beautiful" but after the seventh bridge (I still don't quite get how we crossed the same river seven times in trying to get to Rajahmundry), we could only offer weak smiles. "It's like a God," Babu said, of the Godavari River. d=Diana quipped, "Then why are people throwing trash in it?"  My wife is great like that.

The trip was great though, a break from our…break?  We had ample delicious Indian street food and saw some fascinating Ganesh-immersions for the Vinayaka Chaturthi festival. I used my fingers like the locals do to devour the most delicious biryani I have had in my life (in a very very dark restaurant), and we met some wonderfully friendly and welcoming people while working in their fields.

In many ways, the tour was a Chiranjeevi pilgrimage. Chiranjeevi, as I discovered very early on in my time in Hyderabad, is the Telugu film industry's most respected actor and Babu's idol-other-than-Ganesh. He has moves BETTER than Mick Jagger. Seriously, go to youtube and look him up and you will find a sick, thick-mustached dancing fiend ("Indian Thriller" would be an exemplary and demonstrative clip). He is awesome but his pilgrimage meant little to those of us (Diana and I) outside his fandom:

Here is chiranjeevi's hometown.  Here is chiranjeevi's village.  Here is Chiranjeevi's relative's house. Here is a poster of Chiranjeevi.  There is a billboard of Chiranjeevi's son. Chiranjeevi came to the dedication of this statue, and the crowd was so big that 14 people were trampled to death. 

Chiranjeevi, like any other megastar, is not without controversy. In fact the most awkward moment of the trip was when Naveen and Babu got into a huge fight during said pilgrimage regarding the political achievements of their beloved Chiranjeevi, who is now an Andhra Pradesh congressman. Naveen argued that although he was a great film star, he was a terrible and greedy politician who only was looking out for his money. This made Babu irate [bobble bobble!] and they didn't talk for rest of the trip, using Diana and I, and to a greater extent the car driver, as a go-between in their Chiranjeevi tiff. The driver, Nani, whom they affectionally called cChiru (isn't Nani already affectionate enough?) was caught in their Chiranjeevi fallout and Diana and I didn't really know what to make of all the private conversations, glances and caresses they shared between them.  (It is totally socially acceptable for men to hold hands as a sign of friendship here).

Fortunately, it seems that by the train ride back to Hyderabad, Babu and Naveen were friends again. They were flirting with a girl in their train car.  And by flirting I mean stealing looks at her.  From far away.  Very far away. 

* * *

The trip helped me to experience India in a way I had not before. I'm starting to understand Diana's feelings about Indian people more. This is her third trip here, and her 8th month living here in total. She uses the word "insistence" to describe what bothers her most about some of the Indian behavior she has experienced and it's true - the ones who have befriended her (perhaps due to their insistence) are rather demanding with their words.

Tt's exemplified in the phrase "come fast," which is what they say whenever we are supposed to meet them. Now, to the Indian ear it may not have any negative connotations, but to Diana and I it sounds very much like "Hurry the @#$% up!" I wonder, do we seem to them just slow plump Asians? Do my LBC roots give off a "Chill man, I'm in no rush vibe" that doesn't jive with India's "Be quick or we'll get hit by a bus / Be quick or the tiffin man will not give us our tiffins / Be quick or the theater will be filled" mentalities?

We often responded punctually to the demands of Come Fast, but often, we would come fast just to wait some more. And that, more than the demanding tone, is what bothered us most. We thought it was a language difference, explaining to Babu the tone of Come Fast was not really nice, but he said, "But I do mean for you to Come Fast!"

I guess we'll just have to deal with the differences and go with it, fast.

September 15, 2011

Should we come home early?