Mountain Palaces and the Cordial Repo (Part 2)

The plan was to leave at 8:00 AM, so by IST standards (Indian Standard Time) we were perfectly punctual as we drove away only an hour late at 9:05. The Mahindra Jeep was our choice of transportation, and it fit the mood perfectly as we were 9 men ready to go into war. I couldn’t tell if it was the Jeep’s anachronistic suspension on the pitted roads of rural India, or merely the sheer energy coursing under our skin, but everyone bounced up and down, mile after mile, with wide eyes and fiery smiles. Using my broken Hindi and their broken English we joked back and forth about the impending melee, yelling over the hot wind and flexing our muscles from underneath thin cotton shirtsleeves. I hadn’t felt like this since Middle School.

DV though, was uncharacteristically quiet. He just sat in the front seat next to the driver, looking at the horizon, and not bouncing at all. It was a this point that I realized our seraphic leader was a lover, not a fighter.

After about an hour and a half we pulled off the rough road onto a rougher road that eventually led up to the franchisee’s house where he was keeping the machine. It was go time. DV got out of the car first and quickly signaled us to stay in the front yard with the simple extension of his hand. We obediently held our ground, and stood with crossed arms near a tree to which a blackened water-buffalo was chained and resting. As our brave teddy bear general walked up to the house and disappeared around the tall front gate, we were ready for anything - yelling, the sound of shattered glass, gun fire. Instead, five children walked out of the house carrying chairs, biscuits and cold lemonade for all of us. With perplexed reservation pasted across my face I took their gifts, but shot a crumpled look at Tushar to which he simply remarked:

“Indian hospitality. Gotta love it.”

So at that I sat in the beaten-wood chair, crossed my legs, and slowly ate biscuits and drank lemonade. And this is what it was like - for three and a half hours. We had prepared ourselves for battle, but were left only to fight the breezy heat of a Sunday afternoon.



And in the end, absent of commotion or theatrics, DV simply walked out and directed us back into the Jeep. Apparently after a long discussion, DV and the franchisee concluded the legality of the business contract would have to be further reviewed, after which they would speak again. The war was over, a shaky peace treaty was signed, and the soldiers were sent back to the barracks. I was totally baffled at the sequence of events, but felt myself dismiss it within moments - I was getting used to India.

Before heading back to GDL, the group decided to take a detour. There was a fort in the nearby mountains called Khitri that everyone wanted to see - I could do nothing but accept with blindsided anticipation.

45 minutes later we found ourselves at the base of the mountain, and promptly hired a second Jeep bold enough to take us up the 4 kilometer spaghetti-like road. Passing veiled women and the occasional goat, we made our way up the precarious incline and directly through the 500 year old metal-cloaked wooden gate of Khetri Fort. Built entirely around the perimeter of a cupped-crated in the mountain’s peak, the fort consisted of two castles and a marble temple, all connected by miles of fortress wall that were peppered with head-sized portals supplying blue-green views of sky and landscape to those who walked atop it.



With a hollowed clunk, I slammed the door of the white Jeep and immediately felt the absence - the absence of car horns, the lack of goat chatter, and the void of market-place yelling. They had all taken a sabbatical, and the group took full advantage of it as we leapt up hills of stone and mud into one of the castles. Though totally vacant, each of the countless rooms was mauled by ash-scribbled Devanagari graffiti and 500 years of wear and tear. Some of the rooms felt like arenas with jeweled ceilings and rocketing columns, while others were no larger than a walk-in closet with charred ceilings and rubbled walls. Our echoes of pioneering triumph bounced from room to room briefly filling them with adolescent-like energy, only to leave them empty again as we swiftly proceeded on.



After some time with the group, I decided to section off and explore by myself. Trekking through a maze of steps, rooms and low corridors, I came to a relatively unremarkable hallway with a relatively remarkable light at the end. After 15 short paces down the gravel and dust passageway, I was rewarded with a view that trumped anything I had seen in nearly 30 years. The view of what seemed a thousand miles halted my march, and totally overwhelmed all five of my senses. Green hills and white clouds were complimented by disarming wind and a blunt sense of awe. There were no coin operated telescopes, no commemorative plaques, no rails, no one - just the sound of my heavy sandals as I roaming the expansive terrace. Though I felt like a general, an emperor, a god gazing onto the land, I knew it was a land of which I had total ignorance and quite frankly still scared me.



Seeing that time had passed and the sun had begun its walk downstairs, I made my way to the white marble temple where the others had gone. It was a rule at the front gate that after removing your sandals, you washed your hands and feet in a communal fountain, eliminating the tarnish of the outside world. I obliged, and with damp feet and dripping hands I walked past a room of low-chanting Hari Krishna and into a larger open room where a group of thirty to forty people were congregating. Some sitting some standing, they had gathered around a single standing man wearing white cotton from head toe, his face wrapped so as only to reveal only the round oval of his worn but clean shaven face. DV was standing there patiently but with anticipation on his face, as the others in our group sat and watched. I sat next to Kamal.

“What is this Kamal?” I asked in hushed words of respect as I sat down.
“People ask that man questions. He knows the future” Kamal said with his thick Nepalese accent.

As DV was got closer and closer to the soothsayer, the chant of the Hari Krishna continued without stutter or misstep. It was odd seeing yet another side of DV that day - he was serious but content as he waited with a patience that I had never seen in him before. After about 20 minutes it was his turn, and he spoke softly to the covered man, leaning in with a slight crook of his rounded waist. DV’s gaze fixed softly on the figure as he laid out his soul and asked a question of great importance - I could see it in his eyes.

And just like that, it was done. DV walked away followed by the rest of us, like a mother goose and her goslings. Ambling down the decline towards our rusty white Jeep no one talked, and the crunching of old dirt was all that I could hear. I didn’t know if it was taboo, or just plain rude, but I had to inquire.

“What did you ask him DV?” I asked directly. He stopped, paused, and looked up at the sky for a brief moment.

“Vvvell - I asked heeem vhen we would get our machine back.”

I smiled and look at the ground.

“He said one month!” DV exclaimed with a proud, wet lisp before bursting into sandy laughter

The group laughed, and I laughed with them, perhaps louder than anyone else.

Mountain Palaces and the Cordial Repo (Part 1)

Once again, I had over eaten. In a lawless ten-fingered blur of roti, yogurt and paneer masala I had thrown caution to the wind for over an hour at my favorite local restaurant, Ridi Sidi. The sound of spoon scrapes along the bottom of silver serving dishes had finally died down, but thoughts of a potbellied homecoming in December were just starting to brew. Alim, Karthik, Ashini and I quickly paid our shares of the bill - 120 rupees each, about $2.60 - and took one final gulp of cold water before walking out the door into the humid night.

After a short 15 minute walk down the main road, through headlights and horn honks, we turned down the sand-doused concrete side road that eventually led to our GDL entrance. At the front door and under a single streetlight I saw Dharamveer standing there enjoying a large piece of papad, and looking at me with his usual cherubic grin. I stopped for a moment while the rest of the group made their way through the front door.

“Hellooooo. Goood even-en-ing” he playfully said in his sandpapered soprano voice full of its usual inflection and vigor. His English was actually quite good, but everything he said was infused with a slight lisp, and his own brand of accent.

Dharamveer, who we referred to simply as “DV”, was one of those people in life that when you asked someone if they knew him, they would acknowledge with a knowing smile, slow blink and pursed lips - he was a character. Of average height and a portly build, you could often find DV sauntering around our GDL complex with a satisfied smile on his often perspiring face, and if you asked him a 10 second question, you would often get a 10 minute parable in return. He worked with me on the Sarvajal pure-water business, and often had to deal with the late payments, fraud, and general shaky business practices of our franchisee network - a necessary evil of doing business in rural India.

“So - vaat are yoo doing tomorrow?” he asked, holding out a generous chunk of papad. I took it and had a small bite

“As of now, nothing DV. Why?” I already had a smirk on my face though, firstly - because I knew he had something up his sleeve, and secondly - just because I was talking to DV.

“Vvvell - I am going to Jhunjhunu City toom-ardow to take ourd filter machine back from an angry franchisee, and I need your help” His grin turned to a toothy smile as he punctuated “help” with a few decisive pats on his left bicep. I smiled back and looked at the ground in a brief moment of modesty. As I was about 8 inches taller and 60 pounds heavier than nearly everyone in the village, I was the default “muscle” of the group. In the past three weeks I had been called an “army man”, a “movie hero”, and been told with sincere adulation but unintended homosexual undertones that “I want to have a body like yours, sir.” The comments were flattering, but I had never become totally comfortable with them.

Regardless, though being a bona-fide “Repo Man” for the company wasn’t in the job description I received last May, there was no way I was going to let this one pass me by.

“Sure DV, I’m in. But is it going to be just you and me?” Thoughts of a Ben/DV repo team seemed to lack the sense of intimidation and security that I thought we needed.

“No no no. I am having eeeight guys from Sarvajal come” he said

“Ah, got it” I affirmed.

“But - I tooold them vee were going on a pik-nik so that they vould actually come.” He put his hand on my shoulder with a raspy belly-laugh that, in turn, made me break into a laugh and slight head-shake. I didn’t know which was odder, the foolishness of the whole thing, or that I was becoming increasingly used to such absurdity with each passing week in India. Regardless, I patted DV on the shoulder and retired to my bedroom for some good rest before the next day’s repo work.

[It’s late. Going to bed. To be continued....]

Music

One thing that has totally taken me by surprise in India, is that I can no longer listen to my music. The tried-and-true favorites that I have grown to love over the past few years have abruptly lost their luster. They now fail to spark any kind of emotion or vigor, but rather feel awkward and cumbersome - like wearing your favorite pair of shoes on the wrong feet.

My first reaction was caveman-like befuddlement absent of any surmise, but I now realize the err of my ways. While requesting my usual favorites with a thumb’s blur of clockwise and counter-clockwise movements across my iPod, I had been trying to listen to music from another life. Indelibly printed on each song are the memories of calm spring days, cool winter nights, and familiar faces - these have no place here. I can’t superimpose them onto my life in India, it is just too different.

The solution? Ironically, I have discovered the albums on my iPod that I never really got around to, the “B-Team” of my music collection, are swiftly filling the void. They have proved to be the blank canvases that I so need, ready to absorb the rich, thick paint of my experiences here in India. The question is, will I be able to listen to them when I come home? I hope so.

The Bagar Rock Climb

After a group night out in Bagar that was divided up by monsoon rain and dinner, four of us had broken off to walk back to GDL and call it an early night. Tushar, Sasha, Yuki and myself made our way down the mangled, sand-covered inner roads of Bagar, walking in and out of lamppost-lit pockets of visibility.

“Hey, you guys want to go climb Bagar Rock?” Tushar asked the three of us. The resounding answer was “Yes”, as the rainfall had stopped hours ago, and it was now a clear and breezy night.

Shooting a quick left up a side street, we made our way to what had always been referred to as "Bagar Rock". About 100 feet tall, it was a small but veritable mountain that overlooked Bagar and the surrounding desert. I had seen it from a distance, but never attempted the climb.

Wearing thin-soled sandals and gripping flashlights, we climbed our way to the top. A group of goats that we left behind at the bottom soon grew quieter, and the breeze grew quicker with each push upwards. Claw, pull, push, repeat...until there was nothing - just breeze.

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I wasn’t expecting this. I could see all of Bagar living its life in total peace under small umbrellas of white electric light and the evening stars. In the distance there was the booming sound and bright lights of a ceremony in one of the local temples, and past that was the black void of the Indian desert. For 15 minutes, the four of us just stood up there in total silence. The sun was not abusive, the car horns had stopped, and the peace was unavoidable. I think I like India more at night.

The Language Lesson, And My Struggle With India

The afternoon was cloudy, and I almost didn’t recognize the sky in the absence of the thick sun. It wasn’t quite on the verge of raining yet, but we all hoped that storms would come along and bring the cool air that usually rides shotgun.

“You want to come to one of my English lessons?” Asked Tushar, a thin but sure-footed Fellow in the program. “I’m teaching two girls English in a nearby village, it might be good for your Hindi.” I was still shell-shocked from everything that had hit me in the past few days, and paused for a brief moment of general reservation before coming to my senses.

“Of course. Lets go.” I said before spinning around and walking to my room for a pen, paper, and a bottle of water for our journey.

We met at the front door of our hostel where I found Tushar holding a red bike in his hands. Upon closer inspection, the bike was in a distinct state of disrepair by American standards, but “bullet proof” by local benchmarks. Now, he didn’t have to say anything because from what I had seen in the village, and from the smirky look on his face, I knew right away that this was going to be a bike ride for two. After some talking back and forth, and Tushar’s unavoidably valid point that I outweighed him by 60 pounds, I hopped on the driver's seat and said “just don’t hold on to my waist dude” before churning away as my copilot sat comfortably on the back. Like a wobbly new born calf taking its first steps, I awkwardly peddled and struggled for control with the extra weight on board, but soon got the hang of it. I also couldn’t help but smile at the irony that the last time I was on a bike was my spin class two weeks ago. Flanked by soccer Moms and portly business men, it was a stark contrast to the honking motorbikes, grumpy camels and tattered buses that accompanied me this time. Regardless, the two of us continued our journey down the main road out of Bagar, and quickly dissolved into the distance.

The nearby village wasn’t much more than a mile or so way, and we arrived soon with Mangos in hand that Tushar had picked up on the way. “Wait here” he said, as he opened the family’s gate and walked in. We had discussed earlier that he would have to speak with the two girls and their mother before having me walk in. Apparently bringing a huge white guy to English lessons in a tiny Indian village wasn’t a usual custom. But after a brief conversation, I was waved in and met Anju and Sushila, my two new classmates.

After greeting their mother with a respectful “Namaste”, the four of us made our way into their hut. Sushila was 14, and her sister Anju was 18 and preparing for nursing school. The four of us sat on the large and sturdy bed that took up about 50% of the brick hut’s dirt floor. The two were quite reticent in my presence, and often displayed shy smiles when we made intermittent eye contact during the lesson, but we made progress nonetheless. Towards the end of the lesson, Anju, Sushila and I - granted, with strong help from Tushar - were able to ask and answer questions to each other using both English and Hindi. We stumbled over tenses and tripped over verbs, but were able to communicate, all while their mother knelt at the foot of the bed and rubbed fresh mud on the floor, effectively resurfacing it.

After about an hour we left, and Tushar gave the two girls and their three siblings Mangos as a treat. The two of us soon hopped back onto the bike and began our return journey as the clouds finally started to drizzle. “Wow, that was really cool man” I said as the drops grew larger. I couldn’t see Tushar’s face behind me, but I would bet that he was smiling too.

This was all not a few days ago, but I found out this morning that Anju died. Apparently something went wrong with her health, but no one really knows what happened, and no one ever will. She was cremated a few hours later in an emotional but raw ceremony that I attended this afternoon. I’m still struggling with some parts of India.

The Simple Life

I’ve always found simplicity in one’s lifestyle to be a virtue. Simplicity in personal habits, simplicity in possessions, and even simplicity in room adornment and decoration. I’ve always thought that people have way too much “stuff” in their lives, and that this “stuff” can be both the direct and indirect cause of stress, confusion, and general anxiety. Therefore, I’ve always tried to live in a simple fashion, and honestly believed that I did - until now. The life that we live here in India takes “simple” to a whole other level. Our lifestyle in this old hostel is the epitome of frugality, and was designed around the teachings of Ghandi. I could go through each and every example of this, but would rather walk through one of my usual mornings here:

At 7:00 am the diminutive yet piercing ring of my travel alarm clock echos off the concrete floors and pockmarked walls of my room to remind me of our daily 7:20 am group meeting - I promptly hit the snooze button. The only thing harder than going to sleep in heat, is waking up from it, and I have no intention of rising until absolutely necessary. So after the usual 15 minute cat-and-mouse game I play with my snooze button I wake up, put on my sandals, and walk out to the courtyard (pictured above) directly outside of the room. Various awakened bodies from our 12-person group shuffle to the courtyard as well, and some of us grab rolled-up outdoor rugs and lay them down to soften the sun washed concrete as we all sit down in a rough circle. We’re a hodge-podge group of world citizens ranging from Americans, to Japanese, Turkish, English and Belgium.

Tushar, our fearless leader, begins the meeting by saying “Good morning everyone,” in his usual calm but direct nature. There’s often a 15 second pause until various members of the group update us on the happenings of their social projects and life in general. These projects range from women’s workshops, computer classes for the local villagers, and my Sarvajal pure-water company. I’m still the new kid on the on the block and learning, so often don’t have much to add, but still enjoy these meetings and contribute as much as I can. After about 30 minutes everyone has said their piece, and we all stand up to begin the daily “Safai”.

Safai is the Hindi word for “cleaning”, and that is exactly what we do - clean. On a tattered computer printout hanging from the courtyard clothesline is the Safai list that notes which cleaning job each of us have on that particular day of the week. Some of us will sweep the courtyard with brooms consisting of little more than thin rigid sticks bound together, some of us will have to clean the small concrete-enclosed squat-style bathroom, some of us will clean the showers, and some of us may just need to clean the two bathroom sinks that stand proudly against the courtyard wall. One of the sinks is the “deluxe” edition, distinguished by the small mirror in front of it that hangs by some red threat tied to a nail in the wall.

After a quick 15 to 20 minutes, Safai is usually done and I snatch my green towel from the clotheslines, check it for bird droppings, and head off to the shower. Now, I’m using the term “shower” quite loosely here. Its door is blue, thoroughly rusted, and grunts open to reveal a small concrete closet, a bucket, and an ankle-hight spigot. It can get quite hot in there at times, but you are reminded of the true emotional and physical cleansing powers of a shower once the first hand-held waterfall pours over your face and back. Immediately, you feel rejuvenated as 24 hours of sweat and desert sand fall to your feet, making you feel like a human being again. The soap and shampoo help to do the detail work, but there is simply no substitute for the feeling of bucket after bucket of cool water washing over your skin. Towel around my waist and dirty clothes in hand, I saunter back across the courtyard and back to my room to get dressed for breakfast.

Now it’s about 8:30 am, and the whole team begins to make their way to the kitchen to see what our master cook Kamal has made for us. Ranging from Indian-style oatmeal to dough-based pancakes, we always eat well and scoop up as much as we can. Meals are always informal around here, and people sit scattered around the courtyard in either loose groups, or individually if the mood hits them. Out of metal dishes and bowls, we sit, eat, and read a few pages of the news paper in the process.

Slowly but surely after breakfast, people begin to leave for the village to do work while a handful may decide to do work from the hostel. At this point in the program I am still in the midst of getting up to speed with the business (Sarvajal) and spend my days reading through documents and speaking with members of the team, but still try and get into town at least once a day to meet team member that are in the community, run errands, or simply walk around. Though the pace of my day will eventually pick-up when work does, my mornings will always be simple, just the way I like it.

I'm a Freshman again. Where's the dining hall?

I’m starting to realize the painful pattern in life of Rise-and-Reset. This can most easily be pointed out when it happens in high school, at which point one begins as a lowly Freshmen and spends four long years clawing their way to the top of the food chain, only to be knocked down to Freshman status all over again in college. Soaring confidence and a sure-footed strut are swiftly replaced with all too familiar insecurities, and fresh ignorance. Rise-and-Reset.

Now, this has happened to me a few times - Grade School, Middle School, High School, College, my Agency in Michigan and my Agency in Boston to name a few...but who’s counting. What I’m getting at though, is that the reset button just got hit hard, harder than ever, and I didn’t even see it coming.

Now that I’m in India, nearly everything needs to be relearned. I’ve had the supple carpet of confidence snatched from under my feet once again, and am now stuck with more cluelessness than I know what to do with. Not only do I not know where anything is, or who anyone is, I now can’t understand what people are saying, can’t read any signs, and a few days ago I had to ask my Mentor how to wash my clothes and go to the bathroom. Please read that last part again - I had to ask someone “how” to go to the bathroom here, not “where”; I’ll just say that things are done differently around here and leave it at that.

But now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, let me get to the parts that actually do matter, and I mean that in all sincerity. The people in my organization (Grassroots Development Laboratory) are all interesting, honest and good people; I’m seeing the world for all of its scars and jewels; and I’m doing something in which I have immense pride. Those are the things that great experiences are made of.

Stories about my actual happenings are coming soon. Just wanted to get that off my chest though. Stay tuned...