Norbert-on life now & MP trip

Norbert wrote this to family recently...

...traveling around Delhi is slowly grinding to a halt as the temperature soar. If we can swing it, we leave the house between seven and ten in the morning (for exercise or shopping) and then not until the sun is setting in the evening (when it’s still hot, but at least bearable). It’s a pretty sedentary life, but I still get three climate zones: our room, which is nicely cooled; the fellows’ lounge, where I work and where only one of four air-conditioning units is working; and the hallway in between, which is closer in temperature to outside. The 45-second traverse is always an adventure, as is the answer to the question of what is functioning in terms of technology on any given day. The internet has been out for most of the last week, the electricity is always fluctuating, and the fax machine stopped working a while ago when we got a new phone system. It’s teaching me an ‘Indian’ attitude, which is to take it easy and work (more or less) with what I’ve got.

Anyway, we’ve also been fleeing Delhi entirely, and I wanted to tell you about one trip in particular. India is a huge and incredibly diverse country, so it’s difficult to decide where to go, but Susan and I agreed that it would be nice to get outside of cities at least for a bit. That still leaves about a million possibilities, so we decided to travel to the Bandavgarh National Park in the state of Madhya Pradesh (MP), which is fairly close, and a few places around there. The first stage of the trip was an over-night train journey, which turned out to be a lot nicer than what we expected. There are many classes on Indian trains—first class, second class, second class AC, second class two-tier sleeper, second class three-tier sleeper, etc.—but our compartment with only two bunks on top of each other and AC (at least when we were moving) was certainly a better one. We left Delhi in the afternoon of the first day and arrived in a little town called Umaria the next morning at 5:45 am. There, our driver for the next few days picked us up and drove us straight to our lodge in Bandavgarh. That little hamlet is a center for safari tourism with a variety of accommodation (we had to give up on the tree house because it was simply too expensive), and even our middle-of-the-road place was quite nice, with bougainvilleas hanging over our cottage and a little nature walk in the shade.

The main attraction of Bandavgarh is tigers, and that afternoon and the next morning we did jeep safaris, during which we were lucky enough to see a tiger each. The hotel manager, jeep driver, and (mandatory) guide kept insisting that we were not guaranteed seeing a tiger, but we wondered if that was just a ploy to lower our expectations and make us all the more happy when we did succeed (we didn’t meet anyone who did not see a tiger). The scene at Bandavgarh National Park is sad or hilarious, depending on your point of view. (A friend of ours called all Western travel in India “evil, evil, evil,” but we’re not entirely sure why.) The park, which is about a five-minute drive from most lodges, only opens its gates at 6:30 am and at 4:00 pm, and before that the jeeps start lining up. When the gates open, there is a mad scramble (kind of like most Indian traffic) to get in as quickly as possible, and then the jeeps race along various tracks in search of tigers. Either the tigers are always in the same places or the drivers and guides communicate somehow. We found the tiger, but so did everyone else, so I counted 30 (thirty!) jeeps along the bend of the road where you could see the poor animal laying in the bushes. Everybody waited around, and at one point the gorgeous tiger deigned to get up, stretch, and walk a few steps, at which point a thunderstorm of cameras went off. I thought I had a pretty good zoom lens, but it was nothing compared to what many other tourists had—lots of people had to have some sort of physical support to even hold up their cameras. Still, it was worth it: The tiger (a six-year-old female) was quite majestic, and I did get a decent image. By the way, not all the tourists are Western, but we are certainly in the majority.

That was our first safari (in the afternoon). The next morning, we went out again (same scene at the gate), but this time it took us quite some time of driving around (over two hours) to find our tiger. When we found it, it was too far to see from the road. (You can’t get out of the car unless you want to be tiger food—apparently villagers looking for fire wood in the forest occasionally get eaten, and sometimes tigers even attack the jeeps. Yikes!) Fortunately, there was more transportation, namely three elephants marching between the jeeps assembled on the road and the bamboo stand where the tiger was taking a nap. How she managed that with the racket of jeeps, thrilled tourists, shouting mahouts (elephant drivers), cameras, and not exactly quietly moving elephants is beyond me, but she didn’t seem particularly impressed by all the activity. With another couple we had met, we got on top of the elephant, which walked across a meadow to the edge of the forest and stood near the sleeping tiger for a few minutes. The tiger the day before was neater, but Susan in particular was extremely excited to have been on an elephant. All in all, the time at Bandavgarh was a complete success!

From there, we drove (eight hours, including getting lost on a road under construction) to a town called Khajuraho, which is famous for the erotic sculptures on its eighth-to-tenth-century temples. Our guide told us that Indian parents send their newly married children to Khajuraho to look at the sculptures for inspiration and that the same kids frequently end up in the hospital because the positions are so acrobatic—but our friends in Delhi said that was just a myth. Who knows!

Honestly, I was more impressed with the final stop, Orchha, where arrived on day five of our little trip. Orchha is pretty tiny, which in my opinion is a good thing, and there are fewer hawkers hassling tourists than anywhere in India we’ve been so far. Orchha is famous for its huge castle and fortress complex from the sixteenth and seventeenth century, but what made it even more amazing for us is that one of the palaces within the complex has been converted into a government hotel. In other words, we got to spend the night in a room inside a seventeenth-century Indian fortress. Wow! Of course, we also toured the rest of the complex, which was remarkable for its well-preserved wall paintings. I’ve seen pictures of Orchha from twenty years ago, and it’s incredible how they’ve done up the place. As Susan was getting an apparently amazing massage, I wandered through some of the parts of the complex apart from the tourist parts, and even those were spectacular. For instance, I finally found a series of two underground rooms under one of the structures. These were supposedly quite common in the past, as they stay cool even when it’s really hot outside—but at least in Delhi there are only a handful (if that many) left because of sewage, construction, and air-conditioning. Here, they weren’t even marked in any special way! Also, I discovered an old bath house, which had really deep (about six feet/two meters) bath tubs under really high (30 feet/10 meters) domed ceilings. I could certainly imagine cooling down there on a hot summer day! I didn’t even have time to visit all of the complex (plus it was already hot), so I hope we’ll have a chance to return some day.

After Orchha, we had a quick stop-over in Jhansi, where I convinced Susan to wander around a famous female freedom fighter’s fort in spite of the heat, and where we got a very nice train back to Delhi. The only strange things about the train were 1. that a security guard with an ancient rifle sat right across from us (though I suppose with a weapon like that the close vicinity is the safest place, since it’s hard to imagine it hitting anything he intended) and 2. that we got plied with food for the entire four-and-a-half-hour trip. Not that we’re complaining!

After all that, it was difficult to get back in the swing of things at JNIAS, but what can you do? At least we’re in a cool building here—as long as the air-conditioning is working… Keep your fingers crossed, and keep me posted on what you’re doing wherever you are!

Cheers,
Norbert.

Old Delhi

April 18, 2008-Friday
We went to the Indian International Center this evening to hear a number of people speak about Shajahanabad, otherwise known as Old Delhi, which--because it has so many remaining ancient structures--is deserving of World Heritage status, even though it's a whole section of the city. To add to the struggle here to feed everyone, another of India’s great struggles is how to deal with the physical remains of its history. I am pretty sure there are more existing ancient structures in Delhi alone than there are in Rome today. The Architectural Society of India is charged with maintaining over 4,000 monuments “of national importance” throughout the country and only a few of these sights (primarily The Taj Maja)l produce any substantial income. Shajahanabad is one of these sights because it contains the famous Red Fort, built by Shah Jahan in the 17th century. Today it is a World Heritage Site. Within its walls royal courts, kitchens, stables, mosques, markets, nobleman’s quarters, king’s quarters, women’s quarters (totally separated), and servant’s quarters functioned side-by-side. In fact, the Red Fort was its own small city, a brilliant combination of open and built, utilitarian and decorative space.


In 2004 the Indian Army moved out of the Red Fort, and since then it is slowly becoming a more well-known tourist destination. A number of experts spoke about the elegance, intelligence, narrative history, and what’s been done to preserve it. The speakers included professional architects, a lawyer, and William Dalyrimple, a popular author of many books on ancient and modern India. Norbert has followed him for several years and thinks City of Djinns is the best book about Delhi. (I’m still reading them, but City of Djinns is certainly really good.) Recently there have been two bitter court cases involving the shopkeepers that make up a row of shops leading into the Red Fort. Many of them have been there for over 100 years...a business passed down through the generations of a single family. It seems that there has now been an agreement between the preservationists and the shopkeepers to share the job of maintaining the space. However, ultimately the discussion came around to the even tougher question, how does a city preserve an intangible heritage, and should it even try? One thoughtful audience member pointed out, “It’s not laudable to try to master time.” However, clearly this packed event proved that there is plenty of concern about valuing the material remains of India’s history.


After a previous event, Norbert had been in email touch with Dalyrimple, who had suggested that we have a drink with him afterwards. We were a bit (dorkily) giddy about this, and ended up spending the evening with a him and a few others, ending the night at a famous kebab joint talking about what its like to divide one’s life between Delhi and London. It sounds like he’s found an manageable balance between West and East.

Poverty

Today I got an email from the ONE campaign, working to raise awareness of and alleviate global poverty. Sometimes I look at their emails. Sometimes I don’t. Today the campaign is focusing on communicating to G8 leaders the growing worldwide hunger crisis. In just three years, according to them, the price of staple foods, like wheat, corn and rice has almost doubled. In Bangladesh, not far from us here, the price of rice is half the average daily wage. In Madya Pradesh, where we were last week, there has been a drought for the last five years. The ground is cracked and few crops grow. People have had to leave and try to find a way to eat here in jam-packed Delhi, where they will be lucky to find a corner in which to sleep, under a tarp and 4 bamboo poles with 10 other people.

As you know we had a fabulous visit to Madya Pradesh, and I have hesitated to say much about the poverty that we regularly saw—especially along the road between the small towns we stayed in—and what we see here in Delhi the moment we leave the campus. My instinct is to present the attractive side of this country and inspire others to want to come to this magical place. But the fact is that it is gorgeous and it’s grim—and that’s a much harder sell. But it may be irresponsible not to at least spend a little time reflecting on this vexing reality.

Here is one of our recent experiences learning about life for the “average” person in India. We had a chance one evening to get to know one of the hotel employees in that palace we stayed in, and he offered some bits about his life and then seemed very willing to answer our questions about his own living conditions. He feels lucky to have this job (he’s also one of the lucky ones who somehow learned English well), but it means that he has had to leave his wife and four children, ages 6, 10, 16, and 18 back at home, a five hour bus ride that he gets to make just once a month. He rents out a tiny room in Orchha, with no plumbing or electricity, so he has a place to sleep. The hotel feeds him his meals. Most striking to me was his gratitude, since he is able to get water at the hotel. Because of the drought, water has to be brought to that town by truck, and it is always rationed. Unlike in the US, where poverty is mostly hidden and we don’t see those who struggle everyday to eat a balanced meal, and feed one to their kids; here poverty lives shoulder to shoulder with great wealth. There’s no denying it.

So I decided to sign the ONE campaign petition that will be sent to President Bush. They are working toward 50,000 signatures on a petition that will ask first that global poverty make the G8 agenda and second that commitments be secured for “additional resources for all types of food assistance and increased agricultural productivity in developing countries.” It’s likely naïve on my part to think that this would matter at all. Maybe my guilt at having so much has taken over a bit. But then I also figure, well, what can one do? Maybe it’s better than nothing. Maybe it is nothing. But it can’t hurt. Anyway, I decided to attach the link in case you wanted to look into it. Being here certainly etches the trap of poverty in your mind for life, and it’s an image that I, in fact, don’t want to forget.

http://www.one.org/blog/2008/04/16/the-hunger-crisis-take-action/

And then by accident, later, I noticed that The New York Times online has a story on the front page about the world hunger crisis. Thailand, where we were in January, and India are discussed.
www.nytimes.com/2008/04/18/world/americas/18food.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Norbert Summarizes

Here's something Norbert wrote to his family recently. Some things I've talked about before, some I have just never gotten around to. I thought you'd like his perspective too!

In the last two months things have changed dramatically: It’s over 40 degrees Celsius/100 Fahrenheit every day; I’ve actually had to present some academic work; we were presented with a kettle that turns itself off when the water is boiling; and we’ve developed an exhausting social life. Good times!

So last time, I left you hanging as we were about to depart JNU campus on an auto rickshaw. There are three main reasons for daring that: shopping, sightseeing, and socializing. Shopping is probably my least favorite of the three, but obviously cannot be avoided . I talked last time about the places we buy food—but occasionally we have to (or want to) purchase other amenities as well. In that case, the problem is figuring out where to go. Of course, we could go to one of the many new Western-style malls, where we could buy Western-style articles at Western-style prices. But where’s the challenge in that (and who can afford that in the long run on half pay)? The alternative is where things get difficult. India (or at least Delhi) has not (yet) embraced the concept of the supermarket. No Wal-Mart here! Instead, there are separate markets for different categories of products—the electronics market, the furniture market, the clothes market, etc. Unfortunately, the markets are not named according to their products, but according to their location, so finding each one involves a round of frantically looking through travel guides (not very helpful for that kind of thing), e-mailing acquaintances (who in spite of being people from Delhi, also known as Dilliwallahs, frequently don’t have a clue either), and calling friends (which is mostly successful).

For instance, the pictures from my new camera turned out to take up so much space on my computer that I decided to acquire an external hard drive. So where to go? After the previously described three-step dance, we figured out we needed to go to the computer market at Nehru Place. Things weren’t that much easier there: There are about 200 computer stores/stalls that appear to have exactly the same stock, each with a 1-2-meter/4-6-foot storefront, but no price tags on anything. In front of each store, eight people congregate, shouting at the top of their lungs to get the shopkeeper’s attention. Not being able to speak Hindi doesn’t help; many Indians at these places don’t speak any English at all. And God forbid you want to know something more complicated, like whether the hard drive will work with my PC as well as Susan’s Mac! By a not very scientific method of elimination (no crowds of more than ten people; no shops that can’t tell us prices; no salesperson who has to call somewhere else to find out prices—but sticking with the guy who actually pays attention to us for more than ten seconds), we finally ended up with a decently priced external hard drive—and had to go home to relax and recover. That was maybe four weeks ago—so far the drive has worked fine!

Then there was the time where our taxi driver couldn’t find the furniture market for a bed-side lamp for Susan (which we finally had to have assembled out of two other lamps and only realized at home it was lacking an on/off switch), the clothes market where we were able to buy a salwar kameez for Susan (but had to get her cord/belt on the street and take the whole kit and caboodle to a tailor on the parking lot to get the sleeves attached), and other similar experiences. I guess Dilliwallahs just allocate more time for shopping—we get exhausted after each expedition.

In contrast, I find sightseeing loads of fun. On the one hand, there are the official sites like the Red Fort, Humayun’s Tomb, Qutb Minar, etc.—mostly nicely maintained or restored sites from Delhi’s past. But more to the point, there are myriad places that tourists (a category to which we try very hard, and probably unsuccessfully, not to belong) hardly ever discover either because they’re not that ‘important’ or because they’re simply really hard to get to. For instance, we spent an amazing day in Mehrauli, which is one of the oldest parts/subdivisons of Delhi, to the south of the contemporary center. Many tourists do make it there, but only to see the Qutb Minar, an 12-13th-century tomb complex. However, Mehrauli actually has a lot more to offer, and walking around for a day is quite an experience. For instance, the fortress wall of one of the oldest versions of Delhi (there are something like 16 ‘Delhis’ from prehistoric times to post-Independence) goes through Mehrauli. We walked on it briefly, but gave up because it is used today as a toilet-cum-garbage dump—doesn’t sound like fun, I know, but actually still quite interesting. Then, after going around in circles for a while in tiny alleys, we found the local baoli—a public step-well, i.e., a structure that goes down into the ground maybe 30m/100 feet in increasingly smaller rectangles, each supported by a cool colonnaded walk around, at the bottom of which is the water. On the way to the baoli, we stumbled on some interesting sights, like a woman doing laundry in a 16th-century entry-gate to the city. I didn’t have the guts (or the arrogance) to take a picture, but I’ve since seen the exact image, and I think the same woman, in a coffee table book on Mehrauli. Then, we wound and found our way to the shrine of a Sufi saint, still the only white people far and wide. A kind gentleman guided us around a little, and I was able to approach the grave of the saint itself (though not Susan, since only men are allowed close). The place is so holy that people leave it without turning the back to the grave, which can be awkward if you don’t know where you’re going and don’t realize how cracked the pavement is. From the side exit of the shrine, we practically fell into the summer palace of the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar II (who was deposed by the British in 1857). This was a magical place: I’m sure it’s officially a protected monument, and it’s in pretty decent shape, but you don’t have to pay to get in, there’s nothing marking it as special, and the only people there are small groups of men playing cards, or having prayer groups, or doing God knows what. Again, a young man took pity on us and showed us how to get to the top, where the view was amazing, and took us to the parts where bits of the old paint are still visible. At the end, he wanted a tip—but he only asked us when we were in a place where his friends couldn’t see us.

There are many places like that in Delhi—old, beautiful, tucked away in parts of the city far from the urban center, part of the fabric of the city rather than separate monuments. There’s an excellent book called Delhi: A Thousand Years of Building that has become my bible in this regard: It has a section on each historical period that lists the relevant buildings (with excellent maps to find them) and describes their architecture (anybody know what a squinch is?). Thus, I’ve visited the madrasa (religious school) of the 14th-century ruler Firoz Shah, the tombs of the 15th-century Lodi sultans, Sher Shah’s 16th-century fortress Purana Qila, the 19th-century British quarters north of Delhi, the early 20th-century center of the nationalist movement in Daryaganj—you get the idea. (The 17th and 18th century are the Mughal time, which you might be more familiar with from pictures of Old Delhi and the Red Fort.) I’ve even pretty much given up taking pictures because it’s all just too overwhelming. Unfortunately, the heat is making these expeditions more grueling, but I hope I’ll get a few more in during our last few weeks in Delhi.

Finally, we leave JNU to socialize. Actually, much of the socializing happens on campus, since we have mostly met JNU people and since most of the professors live here. For instance, we’ve spent time with Kunal, who teaches history at JNU, and his wife Shubhra, who teaches history at a college attached to Delhi University, the other premiere institution of higher learning. They’ve been quite lovely—Shubhra in particular has been teaching Susan Indian cooking and has helped us out in terms of shopping a lot. Kunal and Shubhra are both Bengali (from Calcutta), so we’ve also learned—at least through their tales—about another part of India. Indivar is another wonderful colleague in the history department: We’ve been out for dinner with him a few times, he’s helped with travel arrangements, and I run into him on the track in the mornings occasionally. Having done his Ph.D. at Cambridge and going on world-wide lecture tours regularly, Indivar can contextualize Indian habits and customs for us.

But we’ve also met some people off campus, like Nilanjan (a friend of Daud’s and editor at Routledge India) and Walt, a graduate student from the University of Pennsylvania. Actually, Walt is an interesting case: He’s as white as they come (pale skin and red beard), but he’s spent a total of eight years in Delhi and speaks Hindi fluently—which comes as quite a surprise to assorted vendors, rickshaw drivers, and other Dilliwallahs. We were in a rickshaw with Walt the other day, and he didn’t stop haggling with the driver over the price until about ten minutes into the ride. Wow—I’m not even sure if that’s a good or a bad thing. I wonder what we’d hear people saying about us if we could actually understand them, or if they simply don’t care about us. The way the stare at us, it does seem we’re getting a disproportionate share of attention…

Then, we try to take advantage of some of the cultural opportunities Delhi has to offer. Twice now, we’ve been to talks by William Dalrymple, a British/Scottish author who is a bit of a hero of mine since he wrote the best (in my humble opinion) contemporary book on Delhi (City of Djinns), a fantastic book on eighteenth-century British soldiers and merchants in India adopting Indian customs and marrying Indian wives (White Mughals), and an excellent history of what the Indians call the First War of Independence and the Britishers the Mutiny (The Last Mughal). After one talk, we actually hung out with him at a bar and went for dinner, and he turned out to be a really nice (in addition to really smart) guy. Crazy fun!

Anyway, that’s how we’re spending our time in Delhi, but away from JNU. We’ve also been travelling a little, but I’ll tell you about that next time, hopefully in the not too distant future.

Madya Pradesh

We are back from a fabulous six-day trip to Madya Pradesh, the most central region in India. We started out at around 2:00pm on an overnight train in a sleeper car and arrived in Umaria at 6am the next morning. I am sure many of you have heard about trains in India. There were cars on this one that were packed to the gills—masses of people pushing and shoving just to get inside before the train picked up too much speed. What’s amazing is that Indians always make space for one another in the end—here there is always room for one more. There is something poetic and beautiful about that, but with my western eyes it’s also is a bit tough to watch. We, however, had heard about this and were not feeling quite that adventurous. Also we are lucky enough to be able to afford a sleeper car, where one gets a reservation and things are a bit more orderly. On our car the upper bunks were stationary and the lower seats turn into beds. The car itself seemed to have been built in the 50s—yellowing windows, only 80% of the lights and fans working, but the fact that we had a little space and AC (it’s 95-100 during the day now) put us in the elite class.

We arrived in Bandhavgarh National Forest the following morning and that afternoon went out on a safari—in jeeps that take you deep into the forest, a magical landscape full of dark chocolate trees with lime green leaves sprouting out of dried, yellow, grass blankets. This forest, according to Lonely Planet, is the best place to see tigers in India, so we had our hopes up. But still I was shocked to come across our first tiger in less than 20 minutes. She was probably 150 feet away and not super easy to see through the brush, but it was still thrilling. She hid out and we moved on…seeing lots of graceful spotted dear, lumbering nilgai (a kind of antelope that is also prevalent on the JNU campus), bounding monkeys (a few with their 3-4 days old babies hanging on tightly underneath), and rooting wild boar, as well as a couple of jackals, sambar (a very large kind of deer), and vultures. However, on our way back we caught sight of our tiger again as she took a leisurely stroll through a small clearing.


We sat in our jeep getting rained on by the fragrant blossoms of the flowering sal tree. Yea, pretty freakin wonderful.

Our early morning safari was even more exciting, since we were able to ride atop an elephant from the road out to a densely vegetated area. Here's the elephant we later got on from a distance. And then us on top.



[Ethical sidenote: we sort of justified the elephant ride, since they seemed to treat these elephants well, in contrast to many other “domesticated” elephants we have seen here and in Thailand. Every day those who care for them bake huge fresh chapati (bread), which we happened to see being delivered in massive stacks to the elephant area the night before. But, as I said, “sort of.” Do elephants really need/like chapati?!?! I could go on and on about my concerns about what might be “ethical behaviour” for tourists traveling in India. Feel free to ask. Short answer: It’s complicated.]













When we got into the forest we saw a female tiger was lounging under a tree. It was a tremendously moving experience to see a tiger less than 20 feet away in her natural environment. She was so relaxed and happy and seemed not to even notice that we (the elephant, 4 adults and the mahout (the elephant trainer and driver) were right there!





























From Bandhavgahr we went by car to a town and major historical sight 4 hours away called Khujaraho, where between the 9th and 11th centuries over 80 Hindu (and a few Jain) temples were built. These were mostly ignored/forgotten about until the 19th century, when the sight was rediscovered. 22 still remain and continue to be restored. They are amazing architectural wonders with carved figures (many of them right out the Kama Sutra) covering every portion of every temple. They tell stories, symbolize advice on human relationships (and not just about sex), and mark important aspects of the main Hindu gods. It was amazing to see such architectural knowledge and psychological wisdom so fantastically preserved.





























From Khujaraho we went to Orchha, the sight of this enormous 17th century castle, a beautiful melding of Hindu and Muslim architecture and where a number of the rooms have hundreds of wonderfully restored murals. It’s hard to get your head around the fact that this took 22 years to build and then the king only stayed one night! The section of the palace for royal guests has been turned into a hotel, where we stayed for two nights. The low-end rooms were only $40! This part of the trip was totally relaxing as we just hung out in the palace for 24 hours, lazed about on the rooftop swing and laid on cushions in an outdoor alcove that overlooks “the kingdom” far below. Here's me in our bathroom. The next picture is of the palace itself--and that little overhang on the left is also me waving from our bathroom.






























In Orchha I also got a massage by this super strong and wonderful woman, who showed me how she puts on her sari—and how she hid the tip I gave her by tying it in the corner that gets tucked way in back! The next day when we were walking in the town, she saw me and came running out to greet me. She took me into her house, a tiny little dark room and then out to a tiny little courtyard, and introduced me to her daughter and husband. She showed me a picture of her other 3 children and told me all about them, as her daughter, who spoke very good English (impressive for this little town), translated.




We made it back late on Thursday night and have spent much of Friday and Saturday going to markets to stock up again, getting the camera fixed (long story), getting a key made (another longish story), and picking up the salwar kameez that I have had made. I now have 4, so I am set for the rest of our time here…as it heats up, these are the key for women so that they don’t just pass out! We also were invited to dinner at two different faculty homes Friday and Saturday night. Needless to say, that was lovely.

Now, Norbert has headed off again on a research trip to Bihar, sadly a rather inhospitable place. However, this is the area where a particular island that he studies in the 18th century still exists. So he is hoping to see it and perhaps even find out more about its history. We have heard that women really are not out on the streets in this area and that it’s not really a place for tourists so much. So I decided to stay home and get some of my own work done. He left this afternoon, donning a plain-colored kurta (to fit in a little bit) and a good story about how he’s really Bulgarian (not American as his passport says). Americans are thought to be rich and that might not be so good. It’s a little worrying, but our professor friends here, who have traveled in the area, say it is fine to go. They were the also the ones who recommend just to wear the kurta and tell the Bulgarian story to make things a little easier. Norbert will be there just to see the sight and then come back. It’s a seriously long train ride—27 hours—so he won’t be back until Thursday morning.

My plan is just to hang out here and work, which I have to admit I am also looking forward to.

Bazaar

Shubra was headed to a “bazaar” where one could buy good vegetables, fish and meat and asked if I’d like to join her. It’s so nice that she is willing to pick me up in her car—as that takes at least 40 minutes off any trip. I got some lovely vegetables that I immediately turned into a dal for lunch—thanks to Shubra’s recipe. She bought a chicken, killed and defeathered right in front of us, and offered me a little bit. Tonight I am cooking it—the first time I’ve watched and eaten. I feel woozy about it, but I also think that if I am going to eat it, I’d better have the reality of how it gets on my plate somewhere a little more readily accessible in my mind. Here's picture of the chicken stall-raised off the ground about 4 feet, the guys sit on the platform. This guy cut the chicken up right there at eye level...with the knife between his toes!