"In India, we do like this."

It’s stressful to watch the girls fill up my survey. They don’t understand my questions and I can’t explain it to them in Hindi. The women are usually busy gossiping or sewing so they ignore the girls until it’s convenient for them or until I ask them firmly to help. I feel like I’m missing out so much valuable information because I cannot understand what they say when they’re gossiping. But then again, maybe they wouldn’t say these things if I didn’t understand what was going on.

I feel Chandrakanta's pain as she reads my questions and writes out her answer. She doesn’t understand most of the questions and has to ask Santosh to explain them to her. She takes about five minutes to write out her answer. I’m afraid that she will give up halfway but she thankfully keeps going.

Chandrakanta filled some questions up yesterday and I got my boss to translate her answers. One of my questions asked her if she went to school and if not, why. She replied that she does not because she failed 8th standard. Today I asked her why she didn’t just repeat 8th standard. After a lot of discussion with all five women in the room, Lakshmi, the woman with the best English, explained that she didn’t want to study; she wanted to go to a private school, not a government school. After some more discussion, Lakshmi spouted a flurry of words at Chandrakanta, and Chandrakanta fell silent and serious; her beautiful eyes were focused softly on the ground, her fingers lightly gripping the pen poised on the sheet of paper.

“What did you tell her?” I asked Lakshmi. Chandrakanta is never that pensive; she’s usually very cheerful and boisterous.

“I told her,” Lakshmi replied, “now she study and learn stitching because later she get married, her husband, her father-in-law no allow her to study. Then what she do? At least now if she learn, later she can sew, can make money, help family.”

“Does she have to get married?” I asked, even though I knew it was rhetorical. In my world I can choose if I want to get married, who I should get married to, when I want to get married. In her world, she doesn’t have any say in this matter. If she did, she might be ostracised by her family, which is everything to her.

Lakshmi responded as I expected her to. “You are from Singapore. She is from India. In India, we do like this.”

Old City

My friends Audrey Ann, Christian and I have been wandering through Old City. On our first wander, we discovered the Old City market! I love walking around, talking to the vendors about their wares, looking at food before it's cooked. The man posing in front of the omelette shop makes one of the best omelettes in Jodhpur for 15 rupees!


Spotted some old men playing chess while wandering through the streets and took a photograph with a girl who was walking back home.


No photo montage of Jodhpur is incomplete without cows!


We wandered through the winding streets and soon arrived on top of a small hill, where we took a rest and gazed out at Old City. When we were ready to move on, we took a right through an ornate archway and found this lake! Don't be deceived by this romantic picture; the lake water was murky and, according to Christian who dived into it, "slimy". We met some Indian men there who asked us about our countries and showed us their rain shrine to Shiva, and a newspaper photographer took pictures of Christian participating in their rain ritual.

I sat on the steps and contemplated life in front of the peaceful smelly lake.

Outsiders

I give the bus conductor 10 rupees, expecting 5 back. I take this bus to work every day and the fee is usually 5. Today the bus conductor gives me 3 rupees back. 2 rupees is worth 5 cents in the US but I know he’s doing this because I’m a foreigner; he’s trying to see how much he can get away with. I berate him about my fee until he finally smiles and gives me the correct change. When I get off the bus, he smiles again. “Seven rupees,” he insists. “Five,” I reply, annoyed, and walk off.

Call me nitpicky, but it’s the principle that I don’t agree with. There is a foreigner price and a local price here, and after a while that wears down on me. I’m tired of being treated differently as a foreigner: either I’m a celebrity and people are fawning over me or I’m a gullible stranger who doesn’t speak Hindi whom people can take advantage of and laugh at. When people laugh at me, are they laughing spitefully or amusedly? I can’t tell; that bothers me.

I understand that I can’t change the fact that I look and act differently here. I also understand that it’s human nature to exert power over the more vulnerable. That still doesn’t mean I should be satisfied with the way I am being treated. I’m glad I’m learning to assert myself more but I want to do this in a way that still loves the people I meet. I feel that coming to India has made me less touchy-feely, more in tune with the harsh realities of human relationships. If someone is trying to cut in front of me I don’t have any qualms blocking his way, but I know I can get frustrated and push him away as well. That’s not loving at all.

As for people laughing at me, I also laugh at crazy things Indians do as well. There is no malice involved in that; I just find things amusing here. Maybe that’s the same case for Indians who observe me. It’s just so hard to interpret a different culture without knowing the language.

Didi

My suspicion is that the girls are not motivated by the prospect of making money or being the best at anything. I think the girls seek the approval of those they look up to, and as an older girl, I am in a good position to give them this approval and use this to steer them in the right direction.

Ethnography

I’m finally getting into the meat of my work here, and I’m sad that my internship will end so soon. The past few days I’ve been observing classes both at MSS and at my friends’ NGO, Sambal Sansthan, as part of research for my best practices report. The days have yielded very interesting observations and I’m kicking myself for not doing this earlier.

Despite my cognitive knowledge of the importance of finding out what locals think and going “to the ground”, I never thought to do this earlier. I never thought it would be necessary for my project, which I felt initially focused on the NGO’s operations. I’m used to looking at an organisation from an administrative, managerial point of view and forgot that a comprehensive evaluation of a non-profit must also take into account the beneficiaries’ experiences and well-being. That involves observing MSS classes and the dynamics between students and teacher.

Although I’m kicking myself about not doing this earlier, I also realise that I’ve only just begun to feel like I have a proper understanding of how things work here, and so the frame through which I view interactions is only now closer to the truth, less coloured by my foreign perspective. I’ve also only just begun understanding how disparate pieces of the women’s empowerment puzzle fit in together and so can now ask relevant questions. I still have 2 weeks left here; I need to make the most of it and leave behind a trail for those who come afterwards.

Udaipur

Udaipur was wet and cool; we ran out in the rain, water up to our ankles, droplets dribbling down our backs. I bought two new dresses, pored over beautiful paintings, held my breath as the dancer stamped in time to the music with three water pots on her head.

Udaipur is famed for its minature paintings. An elephant symbolises good luck.

Visiting the Kumbhalgarh Fort in Udaipur. It's the longest fort in India. There were a lot of cool hiding places and monuments to explore.

Rain!

It rained yesterday evening! I was watching the Aviator on TV when things started happening. Leonardo DiCaprio had just pulled himself out of his depressed, paranoid funk and turned the tables on Senator Brewster when the lights fizzled and the TV went out.

Outside, a strong wind was blowing dust everywhere. It didn't smell like rain. I went back inside, determined not to get my hopes up. The wind flirts with me often and I've been tricked by it before.

This time, though, the wind was serious and it delivered. Rain came half an hour later, splattering on the streets angrily. But no one else was angry; we were busy indulging ourselves in the cool, wet breeze, drenching our bodies in the rain.

It rained till evening, and the electricity was intermittent: Auntie had to cook by candlelight. But all that didn't matter--the monsoon has finally, finally arrived in Jodhpur and I'm looking forward to cooler days for the rest of my stay.

This morning, I woke up sweatless. It was glorious!

Cooking

Nena is teaching me how to roll out rotis despite our not sharing a common language. First you mix the flour with a bit of salt and water until the dough is sticky and stretchy. Then you take a bit of the dough, slap it against your palms, roll it into a ball, and press it between your hands to flatten it. Then you dip the dough into the shallow bowl of flour so it doesn’t stick to the rolling pin.

It is very hard to roll the dough into a perfect circle, especially when your teacher does not speak English and can only demonstrate it to you. I’m slowly, very slowly getting the hang of it, but it will take a couple more lessons before I can actually claim to make good rotis. The first day I tried I made a heart-shaped roti; today I made a rectangular roti. Nena hooted in laughter, and soon the entire household knew of my latest adventure. Nena pressed my rectangular roti together into a ball of dough and rolled it out perfectly to Auntie Williams’ liking.

If the dough is not rolled out properly, the roti doesn’t puff up well when it is heated over the fire. I don’t know if that affects the texture of the roti much; I ate my slightly deformed rotis today and they were fine, but the Indians might be more critical about it, the same way I’m critical about Maggie Mee. I’ll keep working at perfecting my rotis, and by the end of this trip I’ll get it right!

Dance therapy

The MSS women and girls are happy to see me, as usual. They are not afraid of me any more and greet me with their sweet smiles and waves. “Namaste!”

I am afraid; I am petrified. Teaching scares me: I hate presenting in front of groups of people, I never feel my knowledge about the subject is adequate, and I am afraid that my bad teaching will turn the girls off the subject forever. Despite this, I am here because this is what I can offer, because Vijay wants me to teach, because the girls like to dance, and because I know it’s important to face my fears.

My plan was to teach the participants how to move to the beat as I noticed during the last class that some of the women and girls were too preoccupied with copying me and thus tended to fall behind the beat. I wanted to help them to establish a relationship with the music, and had armed myself with a couple of exercises that I thought would realise this. Vijay, the sewing teacher Shama, and Madhu-ji were in the classroom watching, helping and interpreting.

My attempts to communicate what exactly a beat is fail. I don’t even remember who taught me how to move to the beat, and I am at a loss to teach the women and girls how to do so. I try to get them to clap to the beat of a song, to varying degrees of success. Some of them are on time—this is easy to them. Others are following my hands instead; they are always a beat late.

Then I get them to stand up and move different body parts to a beat—shoulders, arms, feet. They take to it almost immediately; this seems more like dancing to them. Dancing to music is familiar to them; breaking down the dance into something abstract that I can’t even define properly for them is not. Perhaps sensing a beat is innate and to an extent unteachable. In that case, why do some of them still not seem to move with it?

I recall the times when I am behind the beat when I dance, and I suspect the issue is not that the girls cannot sense the beat; it’s their inhibition that keeps from being fully immersed in the music and in their movement. If I can’t teach the girls to dance to a beat, I need to show them that they can dance to a beat. I need to create an environment where the girls feel comfortable to try and fail and try again.

The most successful activity I had so far involved turning on music and getting the girls to dance however they wanted. So I build on that. I keep the music on and tell the girls to pair up and dance with their partners. They dutifully do so and most have fun mimicking each other. The lesson continues with variations on this game: dance with another partner, let the women dance first, mimic someone else, try to travel when you dance (they automatically form a circle). Some variations are more successful than others and although it’s important to teach them new things, I also recognise the importance of giving them something familiar and comfortable to coax the more reserved ones out of their shell.

The most precious moments are those that involve girls or women who were previously hesitant about dancing. While most of the girls are dancing, I seek out those who are hiding. One woman who I noticed tends to hunch is standing in a corner. She seems to shrink into her scarf and the folds of her stiff skirt. I make my way towards her and take both of her hands; her arms are limp but I keep my hands in hers and we sway from side to side. She is out of time but I don’t care; it’s more important for her to enjoy herself first, and soon I see the inklings of a smile. When I finally leave her to interact with other girls, I see her dancing with her friends happily.

Each girl or woman reveals something about herself to me when she dances. Santos dances with abandonment and a wicked sense of humour. Chandrakanta dances with confidence—sometimes too much confidence—because she knows she’s good and better than the rest. Pushpar dances creatively to catch my attention and to seek my approval. I want to see how the rest of the girls’ personalities express themselves as I dance more with them. Although I will probably teach the girls a real dance, I also want to keep building on this improvisational structure as I feel it encourages creativity and confidence, two forms of empowerment.

After class, Pushpar tells me she will not be returning; school begins tomorrow and she thinks it’s more important to study. I tell her she’s right, and she should focus on her studies. “I will remember you,” she replies, and I am surprised that someone so imperfect like myself can still do some good for someone else. Despite what I tell myself many times, strength, intelligence and power are not always necessary for success.

30 rupees

It’s rare to have to actively seek out a rickshaw; most of the time the drivers recognise foreigners and quickly drive alongside them, honking tdulu duludu!. No drivers are chasing me now; they are busy fanning themselves and hiding from the heat in their rickshaws outside National Handloom a couple of steps away.

The first rickshaw driver I meet is cleaning his rickshaw, but when he sees me he acts like he’s ready to go. I’ve learned to find out the exact price before bargaining, and today Smita told me it’s Rs 30 from the FSD office to the MSS centre at Paota circle. I deliver this piece of information to the rickshaw driver in Hindi. “Meere Jain Mandir ja rehi hai.”

He doesn’t get it—darn it, I thought my Hindi accent was decent enough!—so I have to give him the slip of paper with the address written on it in Hindi. After some heated discussion with another rickshaw driver that involves a lot of gesticulating, he nods. He knows where it is now.

“Kittene ka hai?” I ask.

I don’t know if they actually understood that, but because it was obvious I was asking how much the ride would cost, the man replies, “Fifty.”

I cock an eyebrow. “Thirty,” I counter.

“Thirty? Noooo. Forty. Indian price, Madam!”

They always use that line, and I’m always sceptical. “C’mon, I know it’s supposed to be thirty. I’m not paying forty.”

Even if the driver didn’t understand all I was saying, he got the gist of it. The man makes a weak, last ditch effort. “Thirty-five?”

“Nehi,” I reply, and am about to walk off to the next rickshaw in line when the first driver goes, “Okay, okay. Come!” So I follow him to his rickshaw and he drives me to Paota circle.

When I pay him and get off, the rickshaw driver smiles nicely at me and gives me my rs 20 change. I can see the hint of a smile when I thank him.

I can never get over the fact that despite how heatedly I bargain with them, the rickshaw drivers are always friendly once the ride is over. Maybe it’s because I’m giving the money; maybe it’s still more than what the locals pay. I’d like to think, though, that rickshaw drivers are genuinely good natured people despite the harsh reality of their lives.

Paperwork

Staring at the computer screen this afternoon, I try to write out my observations from yesterday’s site visit to S. As usual, thoughts are running through my head again. They are knotted; they are tangled. I am afraid that my work will not help anything; I am cognizant that I will have to wait a long time to see the fruit of my labour. I don’t know if I should do more best practices research, I don’t know which organisations to look for, I am afraid that I am wasting time.

I press on and write out my notes; when it’s 2:30 I pack up. I have to go teach the girls at the centre to dance.

Maybe tomorrow

“The newspaper says rain will come tomorrow, but then tomorrow it will say the next day. Always tomorrow, tomorrow; never today.” Auntie Williams is lying on her bed and we are chatting idly.

The creases in my body are coated with a thin film of perspiration; my cheeks are rosy from the day’s activity. My underwear feels like it has been soaked in water when I take it off, and I drink so much water it sloshes around in my stomach when I walk.

I lived more or less like this for 17 years in Singapore, didn’t I?

Rajputs

The Rajputs are the warrior caste, and Rajput men are stereotyped as hot-headed and confrontational. Rajput women, on the other hand, are very meek. I think my programme director, Smita, a Rajput woman, is actually a Rajput man. She is very direct, very blunt, and very capable.

I had a meeting with her to get her opinion about how I should proceed with my work. I am two sentences into telling her my story about yesterday, trying to process everything I’ve learned about S, when she cuts me off and starts yelling at me. “Don’t say those sort of things; you cannot compare S with MSS! S is older than MSS; it’s had many volunteers and many funders. You cannot expect the same results.”

She’s misunderstood me and jumped to conclusions, and I get irritated. So I raise my voice to match hers. “Of course I’m not expecting the same results, but I did go in there to research best practices, so I have to compare them!”

Smita is still indignant about something, and continues speaking at the same tone. I counter, my eyes narrowing and temper flaring. Somehow we both reach some sort of consensus; she gets my point—that I’m not asking for the moon—and I get hers—that I shouldn’t assume S is perfect just because it seems to be after a day visit, and that I should not say it is better than MSS when I speak to Vijay about it because that will just engender unwanted competition between the two NGOs.

When that happens, the conversation suddenly settles. “Zjack”—she tries her hardest to pronounce my name but never succeeds—“you know, you can’t take things so seriously in this business. Sometimes you have to let go, chill, and go dance at On The Rocks.” Smita and I both love dancing at the local club. “If Madhu-ji and I started taking things so seriously we would both go mad!”

“I know, I know,” I replied, “it’s not just work though; it’s been a tough couple of weeks personally.”

Like a tiger, she pounces on my hint, and soon enough I’m spilling my story of the past three weeks out to her and Madhu-ji. It’s a story of love, betrayal and bad choices, and not something I will repeat here. “Like a Hindi drama!” I say, half-jokingly. She laughs. “In India, nothing is ever boring.” She and Madhu-ji give me some good advice that makes me ponder, and I walk out of the office amazed that I’ve only known her and this group of interns for four weeks—it seems like a lifetime.

"Why don't you ask?"

Yesterday I visited another women’s empowerment organisation, S, as part of my best practices research. The visit had been very informative and I came back with many ideas for MSS. The problem: which ones are the most urgent? Right now Vijay and I are the only full-time staff running the organisation. Vijay is a businessman; I am a student. We have some experience with NGOs but both of us definitely feel very lost at times.

I had a number of projects whirling in my head, with pros and cons all thought out. However, I couldn’t make a decision regarding which ones to pursue for the remainder of my internship. I talked it out with Smita and another intern. “Why don’t you ask Vijay?” both of they suggested.

Why? Because I was afraid he would give me an answer I wouldn’t agree with, despite the fact that I didn’t know which project would be the best to pursue. I think I’ve gotten so invested in this organisation, in my work, that I believe I know what’s best for it. I’ve worked for NGOs before; I know what the West wants. I know how to write grants, write content for a website, publicise the organisation, conduct best practices research. I can organise, schedule, administrate.

I’m forgetting, though, that Vijay has been living in Jodhpur for the past 30 years; that he knows how Indians think and how the Indian government works. He knows the education system and government schemes far better than I do. He also runs a successful business that he does barely any work for and still earns a steady income from it.

Vijay is my boss and after I leave, he will remain. I have to do work that he thinks will be useful for the organisation. I can advise him on what I think would be best, but ultimately he must make the decisions. Essentially, that’s what empowerment is.

I am picky.

I. There’s only so much I can take without speaking up.

I look forward to meals; I like being pleasantly surprised by food, which I generally enjoy eating. Unfortunately, breakfast has been rather disappointing lately. Yesterday was roti with something involving curd. The curd was sour and I discovered that I really dislike sour food.

Today Arun handed me a plate of Maggie Mee for breakfast, all twisted and gooey. It’s understandable that people would assume I like Maggie Mee; in a place where noodles are not part of the traditional diet, one would assume that if someone said she liked noodles, she would like any sort of noodles. Last week we had noodles from Uncle’s restaurant for dinner and I loved it. I don’t like Maggie noodles, though. They are on the lowest rung of the noodle ladder, in my opinion, and just like sushi, if the noodles don’t meet my standards, I don’t bother eating them.

Of course, I was being picky and spoilt. My host parents were being nice about considering my tastes, and I think I’ve been giving them a hard time. I haven’t been communicating my food preferences to them very well because it’s painful and awkward to have to explain myself to them. I also dislike having to criticise someone often, which unfortunately does not work will given that I am so fussy. As a result, I’ve grown rather resentful about having to eat things I don’t exactly like and pretend I do.

I ate the noodles reluctantly, but mentioned to my host father that I liked the yellow rice flakes that had been cooked for me a while back.

“We’re trying out new things because Auntie doesn’t like giving you toast every morning and you seem to eat a small variety of things,” my host father replied.

My first reaction was relief, because I was sick of toast as well. My second was, “No, I like most things that Auntie cooks!” And then it occurred to me that what she cooks is probably only a small selection of her real repertoire because I’ve been so picky. I added, “I just don’t like eating too much oil…”

“And you don’t like hard-boiled eggs, or paneer, or parantha, or spicy food, or cream…”

The conversation stopped there because too many thoughts were swimming in my head (“Am I really too picky? Dan has told me that before. But I’ve been trying to be accommodating!”) and Uncle left to play solitaire on his computer.

II. Not everyone is as fussy as me and some people are willing to accommodate.

I couldn’t go another day with a disappointing breakfast, though. And the Maggie Mee was the last straw. So I mustered up my courage and went into Uncle’s room for a heart-to-heart about food.

“I’m sorry I’m so picky about food,” I told him.

“That’s okay; we just want to make sure you feel comfortable here. So if you like something you should just let us know. If you want something you really like you should just tell us.”

This idea was rather foreign to me. As a guest in my host family’s house, I didn’t feel that it was my place to ask for a particular type of food. My host parents are also usually busy resting from the hard day [my host father works two jobs and my host mother goes to work early in the morning] so I don’t want to bother them with my preferences. Despite this, it was clear that I had been communicating nonverbally about my preferences, and this type of communication risked misunderstanding.

Uncle carried on, “It’s rather different for us because Cody and Jack [their previous two interns, both boys] both loved paranthas and would ask us to make them for us all the time. And we like eating paranthas once or twice a week. But you don’t seem to like it very much.”

I then clarified that I actually like paranthas; it’s really the oil that scares me. The first time I was served a parantha I assumed it was made like roti pratas back in Singapore, glistening in ghee. Paranthas are probably made from the same flour as pratas but I think they are made with less oil. My host mother has also taken pains to make it with less oil for me. I decided that it was okay to eat once in a while, and told my host father so. I also made a mental note to expressly ask for it so my host parents would know I want to eat it occasionally.

“So I can speak with Auntie about what she’s making for breakfast?”

“Yes,” Uncle replied. “You could try shopping with Auntie on Sundays, too, so you can pick out foods you want. We’ll try to make you the foods you like for the remaining one month you’re here with us.”

I was interested in shopping in Auntie because that’s another way I can spend time with her and get a sense of what her life is like. I should have probably verbalised that earlier.

The conversation then wandered towards other things, and shortly after was terminated when we ran out of conversation. I walked out of my host parents’ room thankful that I spoke with Uncle about this and also realising that although I was brought up to be polite and accommodating, I don’t have to be that way all the time, especially when it makes me resentful. Maybe accommodating me isn’t as big a challenge for some people as I assume it will be.

Collage

Today wasn’t exactly representative of my days here. Most days my emotions aren’t as sharply juxtaposed against each other; they usually involve only one dominant emotion, such as frustration, boredom, or delight.

Today might, however, be a collage of emotions and activities depicting my entire summer experience in India. That’s why I want to recount it over the next couple of posts.