Christophe, my friend from the department and I have been trying to describe India. We both agree that this is impossible with words. He says, ‘It is a country of contrasts, and of extremes’. When I talk to other people, the word that keeps coming up is ‘diversity’, whether they are talking about culture, climate or scenery. The word that always comes first to my mind is ‘colour’. However, it is so vast and varying, it would be hard to capture even a moment in India. A softly spoken man with a nice shirt was having coffee with me yesterday, and asked me if I was shocked that we had to wash out our own cups. ‘No, not at all’, I bluffed ‘I’ve been in India now for nearly a month, so I’ve seen this loads’. ‘Really’ he said, ‘because I was shocked when I first moved down from Dehli’. Apparently the practice is unique to this area. Who knew?
I had lunch with an Indian guy on Monday, who lived in America. He described life in the west as ‘sober’. Interestingly, he doesn’t drink. India, a land mass almost as big as Europe, has almost as many different cultures he said, with 14,000 languages. Whilst European cultures are more globally resonant, to an Indian living in India, he assured me that the variation in Culture was just as wide. North Indian food and dress was as alien to him as Eastern European culture was to me.
India is a developing country, and suffers from all the social problems that this term implies. The distribution of wealth is prehistoric. It would be naive for a foreigner to try to understand even a small portion of the social and economic conditions here. The vast spectrum of wealth and class is not particular to India of course. However, on the surface at least, there seems to be an inertia to change. The intellectual classes are not stirred, with economic and foreign policy issues taking precedence. There are some voices for reform, but no obvious calls for social overhaul or revolution, unlike most other parts of the world. My room mate Taygun believes that Indians are just too peaceful for radical action. He worries how they would be mobilised in the event of a war. I’m sure he has played out this scenario many times in his head, if not on his laptop.
There is a miniature slum around the corner from my hotel. This is Biblical poverty. These people could not possibly have any less. Coming from a welfare state, there is no place in my brain for what these people are. Does anyone speak for them? There is an overwhelming feeling that something is wrong with this, but it does not translate even to sadness, because I just don’t understand it. As India becomes a Super Power, it will become harder and harder to forget these ‘Untouchables’, and they will become an ever more urgent part of the definition of India. Great changes are occurring, and poverty is not what it once was apparently. Dirt roads and slums are being dug up to lay broadband cables, education is of the highest standard, and I have found easy internet access everywhere I have been. No matter how much the economy grows however, one person told me, the population keeps growing faster.
The department I have been working in is very cool. The staff are great, and have been so helpful. The work I have been doing (copying, stealing) is really interesting. It is based on pollution and the impact on the atmosphere, and am I in the right place for that (On my way home last night I started to feel a little tired. Was this because I had woken up at six, or was it carbon monoxide poisonong due to the traffic? I took no chances, checked my pulse, and breathed through my t-shirt all the way home to be safe). My day to day work this week involved jumping onto the roof every fifteen minutes (Fun!) to fiddle with cool equipment and gadgets like that off ‘Twister’ (Great!), and then going back downstairs to look at the data (Science!). The department is vastly underfunded, even though the work they do is very important. They don’t really receive any money from the Government, and are mostly funded by the private Indian Space Research Organisation. The equipment I am using was designed here, as was the software used to interpret the data (Clever!).
Last night I took an auto home, and whilst gazing out at the rush hour traffic I saw an open backed Lorry with three guys standing up in the back. One of them was playing air guitar, as they rumbled through the traffic jams, and they other two were laughing. I watched him for a while, til he caught my eye, and smiled at me. I made the universal sign for ‘rock’ with my fist in support. However, he took this the wrong way, and started pointing at me animatedly, with his friends trying to stop him from falling off the Lorry with anger. They went behind me for a while, but when they reappeared, all three were laughing and making the ‘rock’ sign. I returned the salute to the dark lord, and this game of ‘road signing’ went on for about another three hundred yards, finishing with all four of us playing air guitar. Sigh… I’ll never see them again.
Indian pavements deserve a mention. Pavements- seen one, seen ‘em all. Faithful sidekick of the road, not an attention seeker, always good for a walk. Now, the Indian pavement is a different manner of individual than them fellows you might see at the side of the road back home. I have seen many incarnations of pavements here, all of which share the property of being quite difficult to walk on. I have been tripping up on pavements all over India now for over three weeks. They are often a collection of slabs that are placed loosely across a three feet deep trench, which acts as a drain for the road. However, in lots of places, the slabs are missing, or cracked, or slanted, or wobble. In the daylight this is fine, but in the dark, it is properly treacherous. You’re safer walking on the road. This adds more to the incredible experience of just walking around an Indian city. I tripped at the same spot two mornings in a row walking into work this week, much to the delight of the receptionist. She was actually really nice, and took me under her wing. She had the whole department on snake watch, to make sure I got to see one before I left.
I have been mostly getting the bus home from work in Bangalore this week. One stop to Majestic, then change and get the bus to Residency Rd. A bus journey in India is epic. All the signs are in Hindi, but I’m not sure they even tell you were the bus is going. Instead, the conductor just shouts from the bus ‘UdupiUdupiUdupi’! or, ‘BangaloreBangaloreBangalore!’. They’re really helpful as well, and will stop anywhere to pull you on or let you off. In Udupi bus station, since I look western and usually lost, I don’t even have to ask for my bus. Every time I have been there, someone has come up to me and pointed me towards my bus shouting ‘ManipalManipalManipal!’.
On the bus you get to watch modern Urban India pass, as you rattle along. Romantic imagery is boundless; all of life is there. Everytime I take the bus, I find myself smiling at something. The buses themselves can be rammed, with people hanging out, or very modern, roomy, with AC. They always start to drive off whilst people are getting on .The other day I watched a school bus drive at least three yards with three six year olds in limbo between the states of ‘ground’ and ‘bus’. It was terrifying- but the kids loved it. I was jealous of them- compared to this, squeezing into the back of Karl’s Da’s car just didn’t seem as exciting, even if the speedometer was digital ( although there was always the secret thrill of leaving Brendy behind when he slept in). And you are expected to ‘alight’ when the bus is still moving. This is no problem for me, for I am brave and athletic. But what about an elderly woman? Or, for example, a 29 year old man who’s hands are full and whose sandals don’t fit and is a little frightened? I worry about that guy.
Dinner tonight once again is a banana sandwhich. This is ok though, I’m just trying to save money since I’m spending a fortune on my two bedroom apartment. Plus, I had a massive lunch in the University, of South Indian Thali, a spread of rice, breads, and dips, and a huge pot of chicken. I am doing better with the food now, but this may be helped by the massive western breakfast I’ve been eating in the hotel every morning. I go back to Manipal tomorrow, back to cold showers and a breakfast of a spicy egg sandwich.
The toilet in CAOS is one of the crouch down type of affairs, that I was trying to avoid as much as possible. Going to the bathroom here is not a leisurely excuse to look through your inbox and text your friends. It is an exercise in acrobatic discipline and determination, balance and poise. In the beginning, I thought I just couldn’t do it. I had tried crouching in various different ways, but, wherever my aberrant skeleton had hidden my centre of gravity, my long legs just wouldn’t permit me to get the trajectory right. I was invariably left clinging on to something, which is surely not right. Its not the kind of place you want to slip and fall on your face. So the other night I decided to practice my squatting technique. ‘If I move my left knee here, and turn my ankle this way…’. After making some rough sketches and diagrams, finally something clicked ( possibly in my lower spine), and I had it. I am now hands free and able to text again. It turns out its not that bad, and the mild but firm pressure on the lower abdomen quite helps actually. This may be important when I return home to my diet of red meat and white bread seven times a day. In fact, I have considered building a small platform of scaffold that will allow me to perch gracefully three feet above the toilet in my flat. I could put wheels on it and bring it to work. There’s money in this, I can sense it.
Last night I went out with Cristophe and a few of his friends. We bought some bottles of beer and sat outside next to the forest in the campus. It was really cool. They asked me where I was from, and I tried to explain briefly how I was Irish if I lived in the UK. I have had to do this many times here, as most Indians are interested in where I come from, but are not aware of the status of Northern Ireland. Last night I tried to explain that while I had a British education, pay taxes to Britain, and have a British Passport, I feel Irish, and am entitled legally to have Irish nationality. Their blank faces told me that this was a strange concept. ‘It is confusing’ I said. ‘Even back home we have issues with identity, and there are a lot of balls still in the air’. ‘Its not really confusing’ said Cristophe drily, taking a Gallic drag of his cigarette. ‘You are Brirish’.
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