I leave India in less than a month and the realization hasn't seemed to hit me yet. Several fellows in the program have already left yet the reality that I soon will be back home seems just as foreign now as India once was to me. Sometimes I just want time to speed up, but more often than not, I'm wishing it would slow down. It's always funny how quickly time passes, to the extent that I remember saying goodbye to my parents in the airport like it was yesterday. And it is just now that I am really starting to feel the effect India has had on me.
Perhaps the biggest change I have noticed is that to me, India is no longer the foreign or the strange. Sure, we like to make an occasional "oh India" joke but this is out of a fondest for the hectic, pulsating life we lead here. Instead India feels, oddly, like a second home. I say this is odd because India is so different from any place I have known or probably will ever experience again. I have ceased to have those moments where I stand in awe of the fact I am in India because eight months of adjusting have meant everything here now is normal. In fact, I know the bigger adjustment will be going home and not quite being able to articulate this experience to anyone who hasn't lived it.
The funny thing is, if someone asked me if I recommend living in India, I would heistate. I think that no matter where we end up living, even if it is paradise, we never truly value it until we've left. I remember Spain and Mexico with a nostalgia sometimes that I almost feel physically, as if I've lost something. But I also know that while I was there I had plenty of moments where all I wanted to be was back home. And India, for all its intensity and craziness is a place where sometimes one must compartamentalize. I think that I will only really begin to value the experience here in hindsight.
Don't get me wrong, I know this has been the most profound year of my life. But being here, living the day-in and day-out often distracts one from self-reflection. I recently read an article in the New York Times which speaks about "Thin Places," or places where our norm and our equilibrium is shaken to a point where we experience something deeply new and moving. I realize now that Hyderabad and snippets of my experience in India have been exactly that. But I can't appreciate them completely except in retrospect.
But perhaps that's what makes travel and living abroad so powerful. You don't know the effect of it until it's already passed. It's something you want so much to hold on to while you're in the moment but its true value is in what it brings to you after the fact. And this is why once you start, you can't stop. Being abroad is exhausting. It challenges you mentally and physically like little else can and it can test your limits. In the moment, you are so concerned with surviving, with taking it all in, with getting the most of your experience, that you don't realize the most important moment is the one when you get home. The one where you sense a change in perception, in your way of thinking, maybe even in your independence and self-confidence. Yet at the same time, it's addicting.
So this homecoming will most definitely be bittersweet. Full of nostalgia for my two homes. I don't know if I'll return to Hyderabad, but I do know that I will take the relationships, the knowledge, the world view with me wherever I go. It will always be one of my "thin places."
PS- the article link is http://travel.nytimes.com/2012/03/11/travel/thin-places-where-we-are-jolted-out-of-old-ways-of-seeing-the-world.html?pagewanted=all%3Fsrc%3Dtp&smid=fb-share
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Precious Resources
When you live in a developing country, water and electricity tend to be two things that are in short supply. They also happen to be two things that make life much more tolerable. So, as the heat of the summer months in Hyderabad kicks in and temperatures soar well over the 100s, it becomes a bit more than just annoying when our apartment loses power or we have no running water. It is one of those things that makes you want to tear your hair out, jump in a pool, or grab a ticket for next flight out of this place.
To put this in context, I guess I should explain about where I live. Banjara Hills is considered one of the "nicer" areas of town, which means it's more western, rents are higher, and there's a McDonalds within easy reach. But it is also one of the highest consumption areas so we have been the one apartment in all of IDEX who has been having water problems all year. It is to the point where I am happy if we have running water in our taps for more than two hours at a time. In fact, one memorable night, we were without running water from 4PM to 12AM which meant that cooking, showering, washing dishes, or even brushing our teeth was pretty much out. And on Holi, because it was a holiday and water tankers were not delivering, one of our roommates was unable to shower and forced to spend the night still covered in paint. Hyderabad is in a semi-arid region which means water is a precious commodity that must be doled out accordingly. Well that and the city really has no idea how many wells there actually are so they can't access them. And while we have been much more judicious with our usage, we still are parched for water.
At the same time, as temperatures rise, the demand for electricty increases. This also means that different regions of the city have scheduled power cuts each day. For example, we used to have power cuts from 10-11 and 3-4. These aren't so bad when you can plan for them, like downloading what you need on your computer so you aren't left without internet and anything to do. But of course, it sucks when the fans stop running and the heat starts to seep in and you're in the middle of typing an important email. And if we don't have running water on top of that? Well let's just say there's been a few times when I've stood on my balcony and told India I was not impressed with its timing.
Yet this is a reality in the developing world and one that most people have to deal with. Living in India has made me realize just how heremtically sealed the United States is and how damn lucky and pampered we are. Corny I know, but when we are spending our time back home complaining about gas prices that are much less expensive than what the majority of the world pays, think of not having a necessity like water at your disposal. It sucks. There's really no other way to describe it. And then we end up paying out of pocket every few days when a new water tanker does come to fill the apartment complex's tank. So I probably pay as much for water one a semi-daily basis as you do for a gallon of gas. Which if you put that in real terms, would be a huge chunk of most Indians' incomes and is a not-so-minimal part of mine.
One ex-pat once told me Indian behavioral norms can often be attributed to a shortage of resources. For decades, there have been more people here than there have been basic necessities. Which is why people shove there way on and off buses and trains without waiting for others to exit, or why lines are fairly non-existant. And no wonder. I'm fairly certain we would all behave like that too if we didn't always have enough water or room on public transportation.
So please, next time you start to think that you have it bad or that your life sucks, take a moment and ask yourself if it really does. I am willing to bet that most of what you're upset about the majority of people in this world can only dream of having. Like that car payment or having to get your Iphone fixed. At the very least, can you do me a favor and turn off your taps when you're not using them? I appreciate it.
To put this in context, I guess I should explain about where I live. Banjara Hills is considered one of the "nicer" areas of town, which means it's more western, rents are higher, and there's a McDonalds within easy reach. But it is also one of the highest consumption areas so we have been the one apartment in all of IDEX who has been having water problems all year. It is to the point where I am happy if we have running water in our taps for more than two hours at a time. In fact, one memorable night, we were without running water from 4PM to 12AM which meant that cooking, showering, washing dishes, or even brushing our teeth was pretty much out. And on Holi, because it was a holiday and water tankers were not delivering, one of our roommates was unable to shower and forced to spend the night still covered in paint. Hyderabad is in a semi-arid region which means water is a precious commodity that must be doled out accordingly. Well that and the city really has no idea how many wells there actually are so they can't access them. And while we have been much more judicious with our usage, we still are parched for water.
At the same time, as temperatures rise, the demand for electricty increases. This also means that different regions of the city have scheduled power cuts each day. For example, we used to have power cuts from 10-11 and 3-4. These aren't so bad when you can plan for them, like downloading what you need on your computer so you aren't left without internet and anything to do. But of course, it sucks when the fans stop running and the heat starts to seep in and you're in the middle of typing an important email. And if we don't have running water on top of that? Well let's just say there's been a few times when I've stood on my balcony and told India I was not impressed with its timing.
Yet this is a reality in the developing world and one that most people have to deal with. Living in India has made me realize just how heremtically sealed the United States is and how damn lucky and pampered we are. Corny I know, but when we are spending our time back home complaining about gas prices that are much less expensive than what the majority of the world pays, think of not having a necessity like water at your disposal. It sucks. There's really no other way to describe it. And then we end up paying out of pocket every few days when a new water tanker does come to fill the apartment complex's tank. So I probably pay as much for water one a semi-daily basis as you do for a gallon of gas. Which if you put that in real terms, would be a huge chunk of most Indians' incomes and is a not-so-minimal part of mine.
One ex-pat once told me Indian behavioral norms can often be attributed to a shortage of resources. For decades, there have been more people here than there have been basic necessities. Which is why people shove there way on and off buses and trains without waiting for others to exit, or why lines are fairly non-existant. And no wonder. I'm fairly certain we would all behave like that too if we didn't always have enough water or room on public transportation.
So please, next time you start to think that you have it bad or that your life sucks, take a moment and ask yourself if it really does. I am willing to bet that most of what you're upset about the majority of people in this world can only dream of having. Like that car payment or having to get your Iphone fixed. At the very least, can you do me a favor and turn off your taps when you're not using them? I appreciate it.
Monday, March 5, 2012
Watching the Watchman
What to say? Well for starters that I have been horrible at continuing up this blog the last few weeks. Part of the reason for this is an inability to come up with topics that I think will interest you all. Life has reached a point here where everything seems normal and those “oh India” moments have faded into the recent past. This is apropos, seeing that I will be leaving here in less than 2 months. But this is also reminiscent of the fact that Hyderabad is now completely a second home for us. And there is probably nothing that drives that fact home more than the story of our evolving relationship with the watchman of our building and his family.
When we first moved in, Mr. Tiwali (or Tiwari – we’re still not sure) was an unknown entity. He was amiable enough, with a wife who was always to be found sitting in the parking area of our building, overseeing all, and two daughters who could speak English better than most kids their age, and a son who I have yet to hear speak. However we always felt awkward around him, feeling bad when we would come home after the gate was locked at 12PM and we tried our best to quietly open the latch, which inevitably squeaked and groaned and moaned with each pull. And as much as we would try to silently sneak past the platform where he slept, he would almost always wake up with a start before recognizing us in the dark. We started to think he resented us and our late nights.
Even worse was when we would have friends over. He seemed willing to let our American eccentricities extend to our foreign friends but it was a different story when it came to Indians. Once, when my boyfriend came over early in the evening for dinner, Mr. T (as we now call him), came storming upstairs, informing us that as we live in an all-girls flat, there would be no boys allowed. Of course, this made all of us girls angry, as we had never been told what to do in this manner. We cursed the traditional Indian sentiments surrounding gender roles; we reflected on the irony that the American boys who lived in the flat below us would walk in at any time of day or night to borrow a spatula or milk and that this wasn’t a problem yet with an Indian it was. Most of all, I went downstairs and gave Mr. T a piece of my mind, saying that this was our home, we paid to live here and we also paid for him as our watchman, and that I would invite anyone over I damn well pleased. Of course, with his limited English skills and the fact that his daughters were not around to translate, I’m not sure how much he understood, but at least I felt better about the whole ordeal.
After tip-toeing around for several weeks, things started to settle into normal and somehow, though I can’t quite pinpoint where the change occurred, Mr. T’s family started to warm up to us. His wife cooked a chicken curry and brought it up to our flat, which I reciprocated by baking them brownies on my birthday (apparently here, you give people things on your birthday and not the other way around). Mr. T started to give us rides on his motorbike if he spotted us trudging up the hill on our way home, and he always jovially came to fix our broken light switches. His daughters also took to watching movies with one of our flatmates and finding reasons to linger in our apartment whenever they needed to deliver a message to us. It has gotten to the point that we refer to Mr. T’s wife as “mommy” (partly because we don’t know her actually name and that’s what everyone else calls her, and partly because she forever endeared herself to us when she asked us for a beer one day).
It is funny how quickly relationships change and grow here. At first, the watchman’s family was as suspicious of us as we were of them – an unknown entity, foreign, and with cultural values and traditions different from each other. But over time, perhaps just through the closeness of living in the same place, that all changed and our difference became a point of hilarity and humanity between us.
So here’s to home sweet Hyderabad. My approaching departure leaves me with mixed feelings that I will be sorting with for months to come. But for now, I’m just going to appreciate this life as is.
When we first moved in, Mr. Tiwali (or Tiwari – we’re still not sure) was an unknown entity. He was amiable enough, with a wife who was always to be found sitting in the parking area of our building, overseeing all, and two daughters who could speak English better than most kids their age, and a son who I have yet to hear speak. However we always felt awkward around him, feeling bad when we would come home after the gate was locked at 12PM and we tried our best to quietly open the latch, which inevitably squeaked and groaned and moaned with each pull. And as much as we would try to silently sneak past the platform where he slept, he would almost always wake up with a start before recognizing us in the dark. We started to think he resented us and our late nights.
Even worse was when we would have friends over. He seemed willing to let our American eccentricities extend to our foreign friends but it was a different story when it came to Indians. Once, when my boyfriend came over early in the evening for dinner, Mr. T (as we now call him), came storming upstairs, informing us that as we live in an all-girls flat, there would be no boys allowed. Of course, this made all of us girls angry, as we had never been told what to do in this manner. We cursed the traditional Indian sentiments surrounding gender roles; we reflected on the irony that the American boys who lived in the flat below us would walk in at any time of day or night to borrow a spatula or milk and that this wasn’t a problem yet with an Indian it was. Most of all, I went downstairs and gave Mr. T a piece of my mind, saying that this was our home, we paid to live here and we also paid for him as our watchman, and that I would invite anyone over I damn well pleased. Of course, with his limited English skills and the fact that his daughters were not around to translate, I’m not sure how much he understood, but at least I felt better about the whole ordeal.
After tip-toeing around for several weeks, things started to settle into normal and somehow, though I can’t quite pinpoint where the change occurred, Mr. T’s family started to warm up to us. His wife cooked a chicken curry and brought it up to our flat, which I reciprocated by baking them brownies on my birthday (apparently here, you give people things on your birthday and not the other way around). Mr. T started to give us rides on his motorbike if he spotted us trudging up the hill on our way home, and he always jovially came to fix our broken light switches. His daughters also took to watching movies with one of our flatmates and finding reasons to linger in our apartment whenever they needed to deliver a message to us. It has gotten to the point that we refer to Mr. T’s wife as “mommy” (partly because we don’t know her actually name and that’s what everyone else calls her, and partly because she forever endeared herself to us when she asked us for a beer one day).
It is funny how quickly relationships change and grow here. At first, the watchman’s family was as suspicious of us as we were of them – an unknown entity, foreign, and with cultural values and traditions different from each other. But over time, perhaps just through the closeness of living in the same place, that all changed and our difference became a point of hilarity and humanity between us.
So here’s to home sweet Hyderabad. My approaching departure leaves me with mixed feelings that I will be sorting with for months to come. But for now, I’m just going to appreciate this life as is.
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