Tuesday 16th August, 2005
In the morning we head for Kohima bright and early. I say goodbye to my little new antennaed friend, whom I’m happy to see in the bathroom still – that means he’s not in my suitcase. Into jeeps we are stuffed and off we go through winding beaten roads into the hills. Indian Government puts up amusing signs alongside the road: “If married, divorce speed”, “Go slow, somebody’s waiting for you at home”, “where drink competes with drive, you lose”, “don’t gossip, let him drive” – and other such jewels. We stop by at a hospice ran a peace-making group started by women who are trying to reconcile various factions within Nagaland. Once they went up on a three day long hike into the mountains in Burma to find one opposition leader who's hiding up there. Talked to him about this, that, or the other, and hiked down for another three days. Women. What more can I say… Nobody else ever made it up there.
Hospice has only 16 people and some staff. Patients are mostly HIV positive, former addicts, a few little kids with AIDS. They don’t distinguish between staff and patients, all work together, according to their abilities, in the little garden that they have. They also run a paper mill, the only one that makes recycled paper in Nagaland. We buy a few cards, a folder, trinkets, kids sing a few songs, we bid good-bye. We can see Kohima from here. City built on stilts - building upon building propped up every which way on the sides of the steep hills. Most sport corrugated tin roofs and formica or wooden walls. We check into our hotel, accompanied by our friends. We are taken to a traditional village near Kohima, to see what life is really like in Nagaland. Houses are again patched up from wood, metal sheets, mud and bricks, but the village is very practical. It shows that hardworking people that are able to sustain themselves live here. Every village has two round platforms made out of rocks, where the village elders meet every evening to talk or just sit around and gaze over the vast valley. Hills around are breathtaking. I take pictures like a Japanese tourist, wreaking quite a havoc among the teenage girls in the village, who scream, giggle, and run away each time I point the camera towards them.
On the way from the village we stop for a picnic at a Naga open-air museum. It's a made up village where each tribe has a model traditional house. We sit at the Angami house, feasting on food that Neichu's aunt prepared. It's out-of-this-world good. Unfortunately David is still getting used to India, has upset stomach, and glances suspicious looks at the food. We eat with hands. David sticks to white rice mostly. Our apetite is boosted by water buffalo and human skulls (replicas of the latter) hung from the ceiling. The open air village is under a hill adorned with a sign much like Hollywood, except it says 'Naga Heritage Village' or rather, '.A.A ERIT..E .I....E'. Rest has fallen off.
David and Hillel are off to meet someone, me and Jasmine are taken out shopping. I complete the collection of gifts that I already got – a Naga shawl and a vest – with more ethnic gear. If I am to bustle about the world as a silly white girl in tribal wear, let’s take it all the way. I get a necklace and a thingamajig for my hair, a bag, some placemats for mom… At least I’ll be set for the next few Halloweens. We stop for a coffee at the Dream Café, nice new little place started by Neichu’s friends. You can see the whole city from up there. Dominated, naturally, by the Police Headquarters, an impressive white palace, which probably cost more to build than the rest of the city altogether.
Our friends give me a bag of pan – a vile concoction of things wrapped in some sort of a leaf. You have to chew it and spit out saliva every now and then. That’s the cause of many Nagas and Indians’ stained teeth. It’s also said to be addictive. I can’t imagine how, as it tastes horrid and renders you speechless (having a bursting-full mouth of the grool) for a long while. Truly a nuisance, if you ask me. They are naturally making fun of me as I roll my eyes around, trying to save my bare life. We find an Indian-Chinese restaurant in our hotel. That’s cuisine that is not found anywhere else. Indian-Chinese has actually absolutely nothing to do with China, it’s just one of Indian peculiarities. Jasmine meets a special new friend there. This time it’s not a giant bug, but a human, albeit a weird one. Our waiter is extremely talkative and revolves around her like a satellite. He comes later into our room under various pretenses, asks for her address, sits down and talks and talks and talks. When we get rid of him gently, David comes and we all watch Forrest Gump that just happens to be on TV. Unfortunately we see our dear waiter again. He brings tea and 5:45am. That’s right. 5:45am. What the
is he thinking?! We get rid of him a little less gently and resume sleep until 7:30. We were supposed to be woken up by the same ours truly at 7am, but no. That he forgot. Bringing tea at an ungodly hour has probably exhausted him too much. We scramble around, throwing things into suitcases and break our legs running downstairs where everybody’s waiting. We’re on our way to a friend's home for breakfast.
It’s a house where three generations of strong women grew up. All her male predecessors were killed in the Indo-Naga war. Her grandmother worked on the family rice paddies and raised kids alone. Her mother, losing her husband, too, started a woman's groups and is a pioneer in the field of reconciliation. A force to be reckoned with. Our friend herself is a dynamo. A true firecracker. She’s involved in HIV/AIDS social work, and a godzillion of human rights and charity projects. And is sharp and funny, always on point. We have the best pineapple in the world, as well as mangoes and other such wonders, straight off the trees. Before we leave, I ask for the restroom, and am shown to it. Great, it’s one of those holes in the ground… That’s fine, I’m the worldly and street-smart traveler, I’ve seen many of these before. Just how do I….good lord the floor is slippery…and oh, I guess one needs to practice aiming from early childhood… now, it’s all good, just…how the hell do I flush? Aaaargh, not knowing what else to do, I grasp a hose that is lying around and hose down the whole bathroom. Just in case. Thank god we’re leaving!
We clamber on back into the jeeps, and endure another two hours on the winding broken roads down back to Dimapur and off to the airport. Temperature rises with every meter as we descend down from the hills. Dimapur is hot as hell. Tfooey. I will miss Neichu, Naro, Bambi, and Akum though. Must come back soon. I’ll just have to find three more people in order to get the RAP (restricted area permit). Any takers? They don’t head hunt any more, I swear!
The tiny shaky airplane jolts us to dreaded Calcutta. I had a rough introduction to India in Calcutta the last time I was here. Cab drivers are insane, everyone is in your face, everything is dusty and weird! I am thus extra suspicious and eye everything with disdain. The four of us jam ourselves into one of them death vehicles and take our chances in the rush hour afternoon traffic. We get to hotel Lytton in one piece miraculously. One of the bell boys is grinning from ear to ear: “Do you remember me, ma’am? I brought you a plug converter last time!” Dayum! I must be memorable. He chatters for awhile, offering to bring the blue from the sky, if I want. No time for blue from the sky though. We are meeting with our main ally-and-enemy in one, good ole’ lisping Umpakaf (Omprakash, really). Before then, however, we want to make it to the famous Calcutta market. This time we’re equipped with Jasmine, who is Punjabi by birth, speaks Hindi and haggles like a pro. Calcutta market is a huge maze of corridor upon corridor, story upon story, of vendors with jewelry, bags, clothing… I can’t imagine how anyone can profit there. Immediately you are seized by someone who drags you through the belly of the building to his stand. Without him, you’ll never be able to find your way back out. Thus we have to do some business if we want to get out alive. In an unbelievably short time we bu y close to half a kilo of earrings, rings, bracelets, shawls… all under twenty dollars.
Omprakash is on his best behavior tonight. No lewd remarks, he even brings a gift for me and Jasmine from his wife. He actually mentions his wife! The gift is a sari. Very nice, but what on Earth will I do with a sari? I guess I can hang it on my wall. Oh no, and where will I put it now? I wanted to buy a bag, but they only had small ones. I give up. I will have to ask Hillel to carry some of my stuff in his suitcase… Next time, I will pack into a small suitcase AND leave some space in there for things I will acquire during the trip. It must be doable somehow.
August 18th, 2005. Kerala!
I can’t wait, I can’t wait! Tonight we’ll be back at the loveliest school on Earth, up on a tea plantation in Pullikanam! We fly through Bombay early in the morning, where we wait forever for a connecting flight to Cochin. There we are picked up by another jeep and off we go on the already well known route up to the mountains. Hillel sleeps most of the way in the jeep. That amazes us – the road is enough of a challenge to even sit still, not to mention sleep. David and Jasmine recollect some funny movie – Weekend with Bernie, or at Bernie’s, and cannot stop laughing the whole way. Hillel being Bernie – his head bobbing on the front seat, propped up by the seat belt. David also recalls Hillel’s latest butcherings of Indian names. That’s a special skill of Hillel’s. Nobody else I know is quite that bad with names. Indian negotiator for Nagaland Padmanabia is the most favorite target as of late. Hillel calls him ‘Padmanabooba’, ‘Padmandu’, ‘Padminabee’ and all sorts of other things except for his rightful name. I’ve never seen David laughing so hard and so long, tears running down his face as soon as “Padman…” is mentioned. Funny stuff.
We arrive! Our insect and lizard-ridden, yet the coziest and cleanest guesthouse welcomes us as if we never left. Down I run to see all the guys. Beautiful Nidhin is smiling from a long distance. And there’s Anitha and Asha. We meet with the faculty, talk about the training and about our programs in India. We’re exhausted and starving. Hillel mentions ‘Padmonoonon’. David loses it. We all chuckle helplessly. Finally dinner comes, we attack it with our hands and feet. I, the worldly and street-smart traveler, know by now how to eat with my hands, not that I’m proud about it or anything. Well, at least I pretend I know how. I choose not to see all the drippings on the floor, myself, and the unfortunate few around me. After dinner we make battle plans for trainings that start tomorrow. We have too many students. Instead of one three day long training we resolve to do two two day trainings instead. Ooof. At least I’ll get more practice teaching mediation this way.
August 19th, 2005
So the training marathon starts. One good thing is that I cannot get distracted with internet up here. It’s too hot and muggy during the day for the connection to get established, it only runs between midnight and 6 or 7 in the morning. I am able to connect but once in the entire time we are there, and that only for long enough to send out the silly G8 summit article I finally finished. It must be fate. Training starts smoothly. We get a group of 30 students – 15 older ones that we already know from February, and 15 new ones. The kids are extremely sharp. It makes me want to cry when I think of my students back in the States and compare the level of information intake, enthusiasm, and maturity. Although the Indian students seem more naïve at the first sight. We actually had a long and interesting discussion about that. David, who specializes in asking direct questions about the most sensitive issues, asks Nidhin and Arun point blanc how will they cope in the business world where everybody backstabs everybody else with such naïveté. Nidhin explains that if he gets to the top by honest means, there’s no reason to change that once at the top. If cheated and backstabbed, well, maybe he’ll lose money or will be taken for a fool, but he will keep his moral integrity, and that’s more important in the long run then anything. Naïve? Maybe. But hell, I absolutely love it!
We go until almost 8pm, breaking only for lunch and tea. There are two long role plays that afternoon, one really gets them fired up. It’s about the mosque in Ayodhya that was destroyed by a Hindu mob in 1992, because it was presumably built by the moghuls on the site of a former temple to the Hindu god Ram sometime in 1500s. There are a few heated exchanges as we get into the crux of our training – historic memory and mediation of identity conflicts. We have dinner with the faculty. We talk at length about their conflict resolution student group Shanti and Hillel pushes and pushes until they don’t promise to make the work at Shanti a part of school’s curriculum. That way students will have time to actually do something and not just talk about it in their spare time. After the endless meeting we collapse into beds, we watch a bit of Before Sunset with Jasmine, merrily snoring away within five minutes.
August 20th, 2005
In the morning we proceed to the computer lab for another perfectly futile exercise of seeking internet connection. We miss breakfast because of that. Training goes smoothly, we get better every day. Students tell us how they admire our teamwork. Go team! Another two role plays, and a role reversal exercise – that makes our work a lot easier. And more interesting for the kids. Nidhin takes care of all of our needs, always checks in if everything is OK. He has these piercing eyes that make one blabber complete nonsense when looked at, which he does often. I’m sure it happens to everyone. It’s a good thing I’m taken, much older, and extremely rational. Damn these Indians, why do they make them so gorgeous?
Anyhow, we dine with the students. David quizzes them about romantic relationships on campus: do couples get together? Do boys ever climb into girls’ dormitory? I always hold my breath and my eyes are about to jump out of my head when David asks something. But there’s something about David. No matter what he asks, it comes across as a genuine interest in the people, cordial and open. So no, there are no romantic relationships on campus, it’s forbidden. They are ‘like brothers and sisters’ there. They were entrusted by their parents as adults and they take that responsibility seriously, they say. They would never break the trust of their parents and teachers, that’s just how things are in Kerala. Nidhin carries my bag back to the guesthouse, and dedicates the flashlight to the road in right under my feet. I feel like a silly over-aged princess. We watch another five minutes of Before Sunset, sleep through the rest.
Sunday August 21st, 2005
Rising bright and early – Nidhin comes to wake us up at 6:30 (do they ever sleep over here?). Me, Jasmine, and David decided to go to the church today with the students. It sounds like a joke: A heathen, a Sikh, and a Jew head out to church… But it isn’t. They all go to church here together – Christians, Muslims, Hindus… It’s the same God anyway, they say. We get into a little bus that huffs and puffs up the rocky dirt road. The church is stunning. Small simple white church in the valley of tea plantations, palm trees, and flowers of all colors and shapes, under a turquoise sky and a kind warm sun. People here are farmers. They’re much darker than people in the North. Jesus, however, is whitest of whites, with pale blue eyes in every single painting. Funny, if you ask me. The sermon is in Malayalam. They sing a lot, which is great. We sit on the floor, sometimes kneel, sometimes stand up. Sometimes try to stand up, wriggling about awkwardly. Decent workout anyway. First twenty minutes is fun. Then it gets a bit old. Half an hour in, I start scrutinizing every single painting on the walls. And on the ceiling. And the floor. From paintings I move on to garments. Thank god for the saris – they are so colorful with many patterns. How long is this sermon anyway? One hour in, I start counting sheep for fun. Why did I want to come to church, anyone remembers? After forever the priest starts handing out the little wafers, whatever they are called in Catholic. Jasmine and I run for the door. We walk around the church, meet the priest himself. Back on the bus Nidhin gets teased by all the boys, who all giggle and cast quick glances towards me. Eeenteresting. It’s a good thing I don’t understand.
We start teaching the second batch today. These kids are even quicker and sharper, and we are getting to be even more stellar as trainers. It rules to have a good program lined up and then see it happen as it should and better. I am developing quite a fan club here. Girls Aswati and Ansa bring Anoop who apparently likes me very much, but is too shy to tell me. “Ma’am, he won’t stop talking about you.” Anoop is purple. Oh well, that’s what blondedness and blue-eyededness gets you in India. Wherever I move, swarms of them move with me. I highly recommend this to anyone whose self esteem is suffering a little. Tonight we join the entire Shanti crowd for dinner. They want to meet with us, even though they have a tough exam tomorrow. We bring in the faculty and mediate and agreement between students and faculty about the future of the Shanti program. Faculty promises to devote one month of internships to non-governmental work, and even count working for Shanti as a non-credit course. They will get training certificates and the school will send out a special letter of recommendation to all the job placements for students working with Shanti. Kids are overjoyed. Nidhin gets us real plates and sits next to me. More pushing and shoving as they make fun of him.
Jasmine and Hillel are packing up, they are leaving early in the morning. Hillel to New Delhi where we’ll join him a day later, Jasmine is going home, for she’s leaving to go to a Sikh camp in British Columbia, of all places. We have another five minutes of Before Sunset in bed. I’m thinking I’ll never finish this movie in my life.
Suddenly we hear a yell: “Jaasmiiiine! Daaaaashaaaaaaa!” That would be David, returning into his room. We sprint over there. “There’s this white thing over there. Look! I saw it crawling on the window, then it jumped on Hillel’s suitcase and there it’s sitting right there, on his shirt!” We look, quite skeptically at first. What the hell is that? It’s white, it looks almost as a jelly-fish, but how the hell would it get into the midst of a rain forest. It doesn’t move, probably startled by the light. Being extremely brave, I come closer. I see six or eight legs – it is a giant spider, size of a tarantula! But white. It’s an albino tarantula! We shriek and run out of the room. What do we do? Do we dare to capture it? David doesn’t, I’m more than hesitant. But then if we don’t, what will it do? It can kill us all overnight. We look around. There is an empty wastebasket that might do the trick, provided that the albino tarantula doesn’t move. We make a battle plan. It involves the wastebasket and Jasmine. She’s Indian by birth, and least frightened. We all approach the tarantula cautiously. It’s still there, pretending to be dead or something. Jasmine hurls the wastebasket over the monster. It’s trapped! We’re alive! We win! Now we have to get it away from Hillel’s shirt somehow. My turn. Wearily I move the basket, dreading the moment when the mini Odula starts scuttling about. It doesn’t. I notice it leaves small white traces as I move it with the basket. Am I injuring the thing? The traces look very much like…pieces of….napkin or something… I have a flashback to this morning. Three women came this morning to our guesthouse to clean. They were washing windows, among other things. With white paper towels that, when damp, can look a lot like albino tarantulas. Especially if you happen to be a hysterical Westerner. I take the basket off and grab the thing with my hand. David shrieks. I explain what just happened. “There can be a spider inside!” he maintains. Well, I can’t argue with that, but none emerged even after a close scrutiny. Not among the bravest moments in my life, but certainly among the funniest. Funny how the mind works. It’s white, it’s scary, it must be an albino tarantula, but of course. What could possibly be more logical?
Monday August 22nd, 2005
The next day Jasmine and Hillel leave early. We teach the other batch alone, just me and David. I am exhausted and feeling a sore throat coming. Yet it’s going well, although in the afternoon I have to delve into resources of energy that I didn’t know I had and I make no sense even to myself. It’s still going great, that’s how terrific our program is. In the session on perceptions, David and I act out the tarantula episode from last night. Kids are rolling in laughter, getting a huge kick out of it. We do a great job acting it out, too. Must be the endorphins flooding into the system as the program comes to a close. When we’re done, we are surrounded by our entourages. Girls talk to David about further training or somesuch, I start making photo CDs for the boyz. I am running out of juice on my computer- have to go get the cord in the room. Being the street-smart worldly traveler that I am, I decide to go alone up the hill to the guesthouse. I’ll be right back, I say. It’s pitch dark. At first it’s OK, as there is some leftover light from a lamp in the campus, then it turns completely black. Ever tried to climb a hill at night? Not that easy. I stumble about, losing the path every now and then. Two guys that live under the guesthouse spot me. They must think I am absolutely out of my mind. They shine a flashlight down the hill for me. I make it up, and grab the cord. Front gate is locked – that means I have to go down the same way. Wee! Serves me right, next time I will try to be a brave outdoor cat, I will think twice. I only fall about four or five times, unfortunately it rained earlier today. When I say rained, I mean rained. We’re at the tail end of the monsoon season. When it rains, it pours. I come down looking like Nikki Lauda after a winning Formula 1 race. Perhaps not feeling quite as victorious. It’s hot, so I dry rather quickly and soon enough I look almost normal again. Nidhin comes with Arun and they claim us for dinner. We bid farewell to the disappointed crowds, and happily retreat with the two of them into the faculty cafeteria, where we can rest for a bit. David is on a roll with his inquisitive questions on all things delicate. But nobody minds. Good times. We take pictures with the chef, who, according to David, has the best smile on Earth. The chef teases Nidhin again, who slaps him on his head. That flatters the worldly and street-smart traveler silly. Ah, the simple pleasures of life.
When we get back to the house, I finally finish the darn movie, not having enough energy to pack. Why bother anyway, it’s going to be impossible to pack prudently at this point anyway. Might as well stuff everything in using brute animal force at the very last moment in the morning.
23rd August, 2005
The alarm clock goes off at 4am. It’s pitch dark still. I turn on the light – no light. No electricity, in fact. Wunderbar. How am I going to shower and pack in the dark? I saw a candle somewhere, where was it? I rack my brain, walk around the kitchen and living room area like a blind man without a dog. Or a woman, for that matter. Yes, the little cupboard in the corner, that’s where it was. I break the candle in half, so that David can have a light, too. I play with the matches, trying to get the broken half to light up. After a good amount of time, the sucker is finally lit. I’m burstingly proud how well I did in extreme conditions. Electricity comes back on right after that. Naturally. I shower and perform another stuff-the-suitcase ritual dance. Nidhin and Arun come. They are coming with us to Vagamon, for today is the beginning of their five day holiday. We part with the gorgeous boys there and proceed to the airport. I can feel an onslaught of a flu or something coming. Tired, sore throat, bleary eyes. Curious about New Delhi though. We are heading for our big and famous conference on Partition that Umpakaf put together. Tomorrow will be the opening. Hillel is feeling grumpy about it, for it seems it will be way more academic then he wanted it to be, but at this point, we can only go with the flow. New Delhi seems like Washington D.C. to me. Certainly after Kolkata it does. It has many green parks, is rather clean (depends on one’s comparative frame) and spatious, it has low official-looking buildings. And many many roundabouts. It’s like a maze, I have no idea how to navigate through it. We are staying with Hillel’s friend Sharon. She came to India as a Fulbright fellow – studying Indian dance. Then she stayed for another half a year, another year, two years, forever. She is one of the most famous of Indian traditional dancers, even though she’s a Litvak from Detroit. Sharon lives in a colonial mansion on Barakhamba road. It’s a three story house with majestic staircases, patios, balconies. Her living quarters are at the top, on the roof, sort of. There is a beautiful shaded area with sofas and pillows to read and take tea in, a breakfast alcove on the other side of the roof. Her and her daughter Tara’s rooms (we met Tara in Bombay in February) are two wooden shacks on the side of the roof. There is also a kitchen and living room area. Sharon has beautiful original Indian artwork everywhere – large bronze statue, small statuettes everywhere, things hanging, standing, lying about. It has to be one of the coziest living arrangements in the world. David, Hillel, Sharon and I head out into town for dinner. Well, we are driven into town. Sharon has a driver, of course. She also has a cook, a maid and some other guys whose jobs I didn’t determine. Restaurant took it’s name from a thieves’market – chor bazaar – where trinkets of all sorts are sold. It’s called Chor Bizaar and it’s remarkable by it’s collection of furniture and antiques of all varieties. Our table is a remodeled four post bed. All the chairs, plates, silverware in the restaurant are different. There are no two identical things – you won’t even find two identical forks. Salad bar is an old car underneath a staircase that leads nowhere.
August 24th, 2005
In the morning Sharon takes me and David to the American school (elementary, middle, and high school) to see a South Indian dance performance. The school blows our mind. It’s monstrously luxurious and high-tech. They have two or three libraries, swimming pool outside, two cafeterias, large new auditorium and hundreds of spoiled rotten kids. School is naturally fenced off and gated and guarded by security armed to their teeth. I bet that these kids are loaded into limos or buses after school and then transported into their gated residencies. This way they don’t have to be in touch with real India out there at all. Performance is interesting, the dancer has a beautiful Southern Indian outfit. It’s dedicated to Krishna’s birthday, coming up in five days. She explains all her poses and symbolic of each move, even though it falls on the deaf ears of those vile teenagers. Govinda maduram, gopi maduram is one of the songs that remained stuck in my head ever since. Must find it somehow somewhere. It’s a song about how beautiful Krishna and everything he touches and looks at is (maduram being beautiful, govinda being eyes, gopi being girls-dancers that Krishna hangs with in the hood). After the performance we are taken for a tour of the school. I feel rather bitter about it, completely amazed by the stunning difference of lifestyles inside and outside of this fenced-off monstrosity. Can’t wait to get out.
On the way home we stop by at the market. I still need a bag for all the acquired stuff. I buy five. Yes, five bags. One tiny, two small ones, one bigger one to fit them all in, and a beautiful leather purse out of camel skin, stiched with camel skin. Girl’s gotta have bags. And bags got to color coordinate with clothing. Thus they need to come in all colors and shapes. I also buy two pairs of red slippers and a shawl. Contended after an adrenaline rush that accompanies such hectic shopping we retreat home and prepare for the conference opening. I decide to dress up. My black skirt has a slit on the side that shows leg way up above the knee – something I should have considered before I headed out the house. Here in India you can run around almost in a bra- with your belly sticking out and all, but if you show the teensiest bit of leg, heads turn, people stare, it’s just not done. We are at the Ashok Hotel, which is very fancy and all, but I still feel inappropriate, doing my best to hold the bloody skirt together. When I sit, you can’t see the slit at all, so I sit a lot. We find the banquet hall and I am very happy to spot Rohit there from a distance.
Rohit is Tara’s friend. We met him in Bombay in February and I was very impressed by him. He’s a young (my age, hence very young) writer, published a best selling book and writes witty articles on just about anything that strikes his fancy. Runs a few blogs, meddles into theater, simply a renaissance man. Took me about a month to find him online – I kept spelling his name wrong and I remembered his book completely wrong. The book is called Play on Edward, but I was googling, for unexplicable reasons, A Friend of Emanuel. I didn’t even know Emanuel back then, so who knows where the heck that came from. Anyway, I found him, we emailed back and forth, I saw his work and really liked particularly one short story that was turned into a comics by a twenty year old American whiz kid from Yale. Story was a fiction about Fadereu, a man that fades away if he stands still, and based on the Gujarat riots in 2002, when over 3,000 Hindus and Muslims burnt each other to death. I decided we must bring Rohit to Delhi conference and keep taps on him for ‘reality check’ on our projects and partners in India, as well as for inspiration and contacts for other interesting people.
Conference is crowded. We have the Minister of Defense, Sri Gopal Mukherjee, speaking, as well as the Governer of West Bengal, who happens to be Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson. Gandhi has a beautiful speech. At the reception one can meet all sorts of characters. Conference rats, writers-alcoholics, academics turned politicians, unsuccessful activists. Umpakaf seizes me every now and then and introduces me to random groups of men from various think tanks, which gets very tiring after awhile. At the dinner we are approached by a handicapped and by then also extremely drunk writer of sorts, who is angered by Americans meddling into Partition. We don’t understand much of what he says, for he happens to also have a bad speech impediment. He keeps insisting that we don’t understand because we are dumb Americans. Umpakaf is drunk himself by now. He has a highly unpleasant habit of quite offensive bragging when he’s drunk. He asks David, out of the blue: “Do you know who this is? No? Well if you knew anything about India, you’d know he’s somebody!” This he repeats with different people about ten times. Good times. Me, David and Rohit get out quickly and find a bar for a drink or two. I shall not bring any slitted skirts to India next time, though I try my best not to make anything out of all the stares. We take a rickshaw home. I am tired tired tired, my everything hurts, I have a stuffed nose and my ear is beginning to complain.
August 25th, 2005
First session starts on time, which is a major success. I’m a rapporteur for this session. I thought that merely meant taking notes, but no. Apparently that also means I have to summarize what the four presentations were about. My head is swimming, and I don’t understand half of what they’re talking about. Besides, the first two presentations are on Jammu and Kashmir. I am ashamed to admit that until a few months ago I didn’t even know any Jammu existed. Second two are on history textbooks. One on historiography in India, other in Pakistan. I stand up to summarize, wondering what the bloody hell am I going to say. I remember the dialogue from the Errol Morris’s ‘Fog of War’, where McNamara says: ”Never answer the question they ask you. Answer the question you wish they asked you.” So I go on with my usual stuff on the intimate link between personal and ethnic identity, blablabla, yada yada yada, somehow link it to Kashmir and historiography. It’s like that elephant joke: Kids have to learn all sorts of animals for an exam in biology. Joey learns only about elephant. Next day he gets called on. “Joey, tell us about a cobra,” teacher tells him. “Well, cobra is a snake. Snakes are long and very much resemble a trunk of an elephant. Now elephant is a mammal that….” And Joey proceeds to tell everything that he learned about the elephant.
Good. Rohit is next. Hillel asked him to present his comics, which is refreshingly different from everything else. Afternoon panels on film and literature are good. Academic as they can get, though. In the evening there is a presentation of a bibliography on Partition. So what if there already are some? And who cares that this paper bibliography that is just alphabetically sorted is completely useless in this day and age, when people want to be able to search online? Aaaargh. Seems like a waste of time (and of our money, for it is our institute that pays for this conference).
Dinner turns out interesting again. I am discovered by a Keralite who ventured to our conference by chance. He’s one of those clingy types. Follows me everywhere, talks quietly, and smiles stupidly. A handsome man, but what a weirdo. Even St. Peter doesn’t understand what the hell it is that he’s doing for living, it sounds shady though. I manage to startle the waiters by asking for whiskey. They carry it around and offer it to all men, but if I ask for one, that’s unheard of. Getting annoyed. The leech is unshakable. I find a full table with only one seat left and plant myself there, leaving the leech hanging. He leaves eventually. Tonight, everybody gets drunk again. Except it’s much worse. Umpakaf is pounding his fist on the table yelling at the wait staff, his buddy and co-organizer Riyaz falls on the ground. Just staggers and splat! He’s flattened on the floor. Thank god most of the participants have left already. Umpakaf is sitting on a dinner table, wobbling about dangerously. We opt for a quick escape.
August 26, 2005
The last day in India. I pack in the morning and drag the suitcase, and the assorted bags along with me everywhere. I don’t have enough energy to pay attention to the conference really. I sit next to general Kuldip Singh Bajwa. A major general, not just any general. Though retired. General is an old flirt, very amusing at that. He gives me his book on Jammu and Kashmir, where he served. Goody. Next time I’ll at least know something about them. He’s a Sikh, not that it really matters. Just throwing it out there.
Rohit brings a friend Sharad for lunch. I like Sharad. He is one of them kind people. You know how somehow you can just tell that somebody is kind? Just by the way they smile and by the warmth in their eyes, some genuine aura about them. Sharad is like that. He does a comics project in rural India, and anyplace rural really. They teach villagers the drawing techniques, and villagers then tackle all sorts of social issues through this art form – from AIDS, through water conservation, untouchables, anything that needs addressing in their communities. It’s a bloody fantastic project.
I am growing steadily gloomier and quieter. Leaving in the night, I start thinking about Vienna – what the hell am I doing in Vienna – and my dissertation – why did I start writing it in the first place? Not really looking forward to go back, I’d much rather stay in Delhi for, well, forever. We go for dinner with David, Rohit, and Sharad. We decide to capture this whole bizarre conference in a comics form. Umpakaf will be the superhero. I think his main powers should be deafening lisping and some vile slimy substance that will suffocate people. At least we have a driver to drive us around, that makes up for some of it. Sharad has to run. Soon we leave, too. Drop David off at Sharon’s. Drom Rohit off at the hotel. Drop myself off at the airport… Growing grumpy. I had three drinks at the restaurant, am sick and tired. Sleep most of the way home. Come home as if not to disappoint expectations of people: dirty, smelly, sick. How one should return from India. I resolve to remain dirty and smelly for away. I refuse to wash India out of my hair just yet.
You have to accept a thing or two when you are a female and you decide, for whatever strange reasons, to start boxing. I got used to all the winks and smacking sounds as I pass through the gym real quick. After all, I'm trapped in a room where testosterone is oozing out of the walls, and that in Central Europe, where menfolk has not quite yet been subjected to the PC drill. Today I had an interesting exchange with a Bosniak - that's not a pastry (actually it is that, too, but this particular one was not. It was a young Bosnian, aka a Bosniak. Or he, rather.). About my students' age - must have been 18, 19, who knows. He was on a stationary bike in front of me, until I punched the display out of my bike. I really don't know how. He picked it off the floor and helped me punch it back in (it is a boxing gym, you know. We punch everything.) He was very chatty, this one was. First there was some Bosnian-Slovak-English small-talk about who's from where, yada yada yada, what am i doing in Vienna, blablabla, do I like boxing, yakedy yak. Then with his broken English he asks: "are you here alone?" I, confused (I'm a polite girl and I believe in the best in people) say:"Well, yes, but I have family and friends in Bratislava.: Bosniak won't have it. No time wasting: "No boyfriend?" I don't even know the bloody kid's name, and he may well be half my age, but hey. I'm a well-brought up and dainty lady. "Yes, I have one in Boston." Too much English for him, "No?" he asks. "Yes!" says I. "Boston." "No boyfriend Vienna" says he. Well, no, eeerrrrh, no I guess, he's not in Vienna. That seemed to have jumpstarted some thought process in him as he proceeded to ask in now perfect English: "Will you party with me?" Now this is a moment that we all know so well. The moment in a story that's frozen and that one keeps coming back to, mulling over millions of smart and funny things one could have said, in an ideal world. Instead I looked around, my brain drew a blank and I said :"Cough, ehm, ummmm, we'll see." He asked immediately and confidently when shall we see, the smegging little bugger. I caught myself a little and asked him just what did he mean precisely by 'will you party with me", although I did have a pretty good idea. He smirked the slimiest smirk the Universe ever witnessed and said in a deep voice (and coming from a teenager to me, an old hag, that seemed funny): "Weeeeell, what do YOU mean by partying?..." Eerrrrr, blank, blank, scratch my head, shuffle my feet, ummmm. I did manage to cough up something to the effect that I don't think so, and thank him for his kind help. But I can safely say I failed the test of assertiveness and coolness 100%.
