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...

We’re not in Kansas anymore.

After nearly two months of prepping, talking and imagining, I am finally here. Coming in fast on the British Airways 777, I could see a subtle haze of heat over the entire landscape that seemed randomly splotched with desert sand, brittle greenery and squatty concrete buildings. The thirty minutes that followed were unremarkable with a standard landing, standard de-boarding, standard customs, and standard baggage claim. Let the record show though, that I purposely used the standard toilet in customs, as I knew it would be the last one I would see in many months.

However, shortly after getting my bag and making an arrow shot for the currency exchange, evidence that I was in a foreign land became quite apparent when the power in the building went completely out for 10 minutes, and no one thought anything of it. “Well, other people in Delhi need power too!” said an old man standing in the dark on my left. The power did eventually come back on though, I got my rupees, and I made another arrow shot towards the exit as I was determined to not break pace towards my destination - Bagar.

Upon exiting the airport, I shortly found my driver holding “Benjamin Haynes” in large letters, and after a single point and nod in his direction we were off to his little white car. During our walk though, I found it extremely amusing that as we came up to an older and slower man on the sidewalk that was in our way, instead of walking around him the driver simply tapped the old man on the shoulder and directed him to move out of our way, which he did without protest - more evidence that I was not in Kansas anymore.

After loading the car with my cumbersome backpack, I sat in the blanketed backseat of his car. “Air conditioning?” he asked me. I had learned earlier that it was an extra 2-cents a kilometer, and decided to splurge. “Sure” I said - we were off.

Now, for the past eight hours I had been going over 600 mph at 30,000 feet, but this car ride was by far the most awe-inspiring form of transportation I had ever taken. I had heard for years from my friend Akhil that India driving was like non-other, to which I would promptly scoff. However, the next 5 hours of my life consisted of total automotive chaos. Whereas in the States I am used to rules, caution and safety on the road, Indian highways and roads do not have these luxuries. In India, traffic was a relentless, split-second balancing act of give and take between all drivers on the road. I watched in white-knuckle awe as cars ceaselessly darted in and out at high speed with inches to spare. Motorcycles often had three people on board, one of which was commonly an infant. People clinged to the back and tops of moving vans. Cows and goats dotted the road’s shoulder. But after all of the chaos and close calls, my driver delivered me unscathed to the front door of the Grassroots Development Laboratory hostel - my home for the next six months.

24 Hours In London. Tick Tock.

Well, I just dropped my Dad off at Paddington Station and walked back to the hotel through Hyde Park which I must say is amazing, and approaches the grandiosity of Central Park - this reinforces my opinion that Boston really needs to get its ass in gear with The Commons, but that's a whole other discussion.

Regardless, it was tough to say goodbye to my Dad on many levels, and now I'm left for 24 hours with that odd feeling that delicately straddles nervousness and excitement. Wait, did I just say "delicately straddles"? Oh well, it's a hell of metaphor and I stand by it.