A Day in Delhi

My mother descended on India on September 14, so we’ve been busy trying to see as much as we can in just three weeks while I do my best to keep my research moving along.  Yesterday we took the metro into Delhi and did some sightseeing.  First on the agenda was going to the railroad station to buy tickets, since the websites that sell them do not take international cards.  We had been warned that the tourists’ ticket office was very hard to find, which proved to be the case.  At one point, we had about five guys on us trying to convince us that, due to construction, the office we were looking for was in a different building across the street.  We ignored the scammers as best we could and eventually found the right place, only to be informed that because we did not have our actual passports on us (versus copies), we could not purchase tickets.   One strike.

Then we went to visit the President’s Palace and surrounding gardens.  It was very nice and uncrowded and green, qualities not often found in Delhi.  We wanted to see the Moghul Gardens that were on the other side of the presidential buildings according to the map, so we went on a long, very hot walk to find them only to be turned away by armed guards saying that we needed special permission to see them.  Strike two.  Should have read a guide book. 

We decided to hire a rickshaw driver for the rest of the afternoon.  We went to India Gate, which was cool but not fantastic, especially considering the uncommonly large concentration of leering men.  Not quite a strike; let’s call it a ball.  We proceeded to Humayun’s Tomb…finally, a hit!  We spent quite a bit of time inside one of the smaller tomb enclosures (Isa Khan’s tomb) thinking that it was the big attraction.  I think my favorite part was the wall around the tombs, how the entrance was a bit crumbled, and the palm trees behind it.  Humanyun’s Tomb predates the Taj Mahal and inspired its design.  It was amazing.  Very grand, that’s the only word to describe it.  We passed hours there very easily, and of course, Oliver turned into a tourist attraction too.  Sometimes I wonder how many thousands of people in India have seen his photo…maybe we should start charging?  Maybe find a Bollywood agent and start a college fund??

The rickshaw driver, Mr. Singh (the name for Sikhs) took us to visit his temple.  Very neat experience outside of the tourist realm.  We took off our shoes, washed our hands and feet, climbed up the stairs, and then covered our hair before entering.  It was evening and people were just starting to come to pray.  There were three musicians playing, one on tabla (drums) and two signing.  The leader of the temple even came over to welcome us and talk with us for awhile. 

Mom says that Oliver has grown so much in the last month that we’ve been here.  I packed up some clothes that don’t fit him anymore and replaced them with lots of new, bigger clothes from my mom and Juan.  I’m getting him to eat more food now that I know my mom’s old trick: put the sweet fruit on the front of the spoon to mask the veggies.  Ah ha!  Found out today that he really likes mango; he didn’t like it when I gave him some at home, but now he just gobbled it down!  He’s making lots of new noises and continues to flirt with anyone who’ll look at him, which is just about everyone. 

Oliver now has a little friend who’s just a month younger than him, Joram.  He’s Andre and Bianca’s son, a German couple who we were connected to thanks to a Fulbrighter in Delhi who met Andre at a yoga class.  We met them last weekend in Delhi, went out for lunch, bought chocolate pastries (of course we clicked!!) and had tea at their flat.  It was funny to see how Joram and Oliver make such similar noises yet their different personalities are already present.  Oliver just about exploded with excitement to see Joram, flapping his arms while standing up and yelling, while Joram is very, very relaxed and laid back and kind of scrutinizes new people while making a quizzical expression with his eyebrows.  Very fun to have baby interaction, and hopefully we’ll be able to get together with them soon!

Mewat

IRRAD works in a district of Haryana state called Mewat; it ranks lowest in the state among socioeconomic indicators such as literacy, income, health, access to water, sanitation, etc. Mewat is in the foothills of the Aravali Range, said to be one of if not the oldest mountain range in this part of Asia. It is a unique district in that the majority of the population is Muslim. I don’t know the precise history, but a few hundred years ago, the Hindu population was forcibly converted to Islam, but covertly kept many of their Hindu traditions. This caused them to be rejected by both the Hindu and Muslim communities, so they have been relatively isolated for centuries. I visited two of the villages, Notki and Kotla, last Wednesday.

These two villages are nearly the same in population, around 1200 residents each. Notki is IRRAD’s showcase village; all of the interventions they have introduced are working to some degree. On the other hand, IRRAD has only just begun working in Kotla. I was surprised by the proximity of the villages to each other since they are only a mile or two apart and we passed through one other village, Ghaghas, to get to the other. The roads were extremely rough. There were many naked children and many kids around five years old taking care of even younger children and babies while their parents work.

Surprisingly, only a little more than a third of the population depends on agriculture for its main source of livelihood. About the same amount are laborers, and the rest derive income from shops, driving, and other employment. One of the main impediments to agriculture and life in general is a shortage of water; much of the water that is available is saline. In Notki, we saw several wells and though the water levels were twice as deep as they were just a few years ago, there was water. In Kotla, there are only two wells for the entire village. One was dry. We watched young women dipping buckets to get water from the other well (the water was 120 feet down), and we could hear the buckets hit the bottom each time one fell into the water.
The landscape is beautiful. My favorite memory of my first trip to the field was when we hiked back to see a check dam that IRRAD had built in Kotla. We hiked farther back behind the dam (which wasn’t holding any water back—there was only a trickle) toward a cliff with two small waterfalls and palm trees growing out the side. There were probably 50 women and children bathing under the waterfalls and doing laundry in the pools underneath. It was so neat, and I wish that I could have captured it on my camera, but they people there are extremely sensitive to having their pictures taken, especially women. In fact, I was told that there were rumors circulating recently that IRRAD takes pictures of the girls and shows them to advertise to the whole world without their consent. More importantly, not too long ago there was a fatwa issued in Mewat against IRRAD; this is a very traditional area and many religious leaders are against any kind of development, claiming that IRRAD only wants to take away their power and dilute their culture. I did take one picture of the school building in Notki, being careful to wait until a group of girls had walked out of the frame.

Continental Breakfast

After being here for nearly three weeks, there are so many experiences that I want to share, so the following is an unfocused collection of observations and stories.

GURGAON:
Gurgaon is probably the strangest place I have ever seen. There are modern glass buildings on streets that are in horrible disrepair; “pothole” doesn’t even begin to describe the condition of the roads here. The city was basically all built within the last thirty years when agricultural land was purchased by developers, and it has now become a hub of India’s IT industry and home to many multi-national corporations. Extreme wealth and extreme poverty is evident everywhere you look. There is a mall called the “Gold Souk,” which appears to be a place where movie stars buy insanely expensive jewelry, and outside of it is a road that will devour any vehicle moving more than 3 mph and an expanse of land filled with tents, lean-tos, and other small huts that the most marginalized residents call home. Directly across the road from the three-story house in which I’m living, there is an open lot and a brick hut where at least one family is living. Down the street, another three-story home is being constructed, and laborers and their families are living in the building’s skeleton and in tents outside.

So far we haven’t found a whole lot to do here, but we did have an adventure at a park called “Leisure Valley.” It sounded nice on the internet, and the musical fountain sounded like fun, so we went. We got there and as soon as we entered the gate, we were greeted by a transvestite wearing a bright red saree. “Hellloooo, how are yooouuu?” We pretended not to notice and kept walking, only to find that there was no water in the musical fountain. We kept walking, and then realized that there were absolutely no women in the park. We left but not before being approached by a man dressed as a monkey…we had seen people dressed like monkeys before, and I guess they do it to honor a Hindu god and also for money. He was oddly good at impersonating a monkey too, making sounds and bouncing around, so we took a picture and gave him some money.
 

 
TRAFFIC:
The mix of traffic is mind-boggling. Cars, trucks, motorcycles carrying four people, bikes, bicycle rickshaws, cattle, dogs, donkeys, pigs, pedestrians, and people pushing trailers of produce all compete for space, weaving around one another and coming within inches of each other. After an especially memorable traffic situation, going down the opposite side of the highway into oncoming traffic to avoid a traffic jam on the “correct” side, Sinclair asked the driver how people learn to drive here, and he quickly responded that “they don’t.” The amazing thing is that it all seems to work; I haven’t seen an accident yet.

THE OFFICE:
One striking difference about the office here is that there seems to be a very defined hierarchy. For example, if I want to talk with someone in a different center, I must ask Devika, a junior researcher, to arrange a meeting for me even though they are just down the hall. If Devika is not available, I must ask Jitesh, then Ajeet, then Niti, and finally, I may ask the director of the research center, Pradeep. Devika has been put in charge of making sure that I have everything I need, and we’ve begun to develop a friendship with her as well. She’s really taken us under her wing, and we went out for pizza together with her mom one night. IRRAD has a fruit break at 11:00 which I really love—everybody just takes a break and goes downstairs to eat apples together. I love lunches here too because every day is like a potluck! Everybody shares their food with everybody else, so when you ask someone what they brought for lunch, it’s really like asking what else you’re having for lunch. When I get to the office in the morning, I drop my lunch off in the kitchen, and the workers there either put it in a warmer or in the fridge, and then give it to me when I come down for lunch. They have everybody’s tupperware memorized everyday; it’s really amazing. Then they wash it for you after lunch, and you pick it up at the end of the day…I’m getting spoiled.

TRAVELING WITH A BABY:
We’re a walking attraction everywhere we go. We went to Old Delhi to see the Red Fort, which is a story in itself, and people were taking pictures of us—it was like a paparazzi situation and felt very strange and a bit violating to have people taking your picture without permission constantly. It’s very crowded in Old Delhi, and people were coming up to touch his hands or feet or face too. Constant and unavoidable. We escaped into an air conditioned saree shop when Oliver started making his hungry cry. It was all men in the shop, but when he’s hungry, he’s hungry and he’s got to eat, so I sat down, covered up with a blanket, and started feeding him. We were immediately ushered upstairs to a side room, and after all that was said and done, we got to hang out upstairs with a mother and her three grown daughters who were shopping for fancy sarees. They all held and played with Oliver, and we drank chai. It was such a cool experience, and I ended up buying a saree too!

We had a funny incident in a restaurant once when I left a rolled up diaper behind to be bussed with the dirty dishes, and a waiter came running after us frantically as we left saying “Madam! Madam! You forgot this!”

FOOD:
It’s very spicy. By the time I get back, I’ll be able to eat any Mexican food with ease. Breakfast and supper is provided to us here, and is usually very delicious (but spicy). We cook our own lunches, though some people find it strange that we would cook for ourselves since most financially secure people hire help for cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc. Rupa, the woman who owns the house, decided to prepare a special “American Continental Breakfast” just for us the other morning, which was very sweet of her but comically misguided. As Sinclair said, it was like a Lutheran potluck; everything was bland and you weren’t quite sure what it was. She made a macaroni salad in eggless mayo (many vegetarians here do not eat eggs) and grilled coleslaw sandwiches. Yes, grilled coleslaw sandwiches. Before I knew that she had made it, I was trying to peek inside the sandwiches to figure out what it was. She told us she made it just for us, explaining that it was an American Continental Breakfast to make us feel at home. She asked how it was, and Sinclair responded perfectly with, “It tastes just like something from Minnesota.” Spot on. I smiled and nodded as I ate to be polite, but it was a hard balance to strike since we’re not looking forward to the next time. Very sweet lady though; I think we’ll offer to make breakfast sometime. Maybe chocolate chip pancakes.

OLIVER:
I know it’s what you’ve all been waiting for…he’s such a rock star. I’ve started giving him homemade purees; I started out with green beans and he made the classic “ew” face, but now he really gobbles it down. He kind of hums as he eats too! After he eats the green stuff, I give him some fruit. One night it was banana and yesterday I made a bunch of pear puree, which he really loved—he sees the spoon and tries to grab it a pull it toward his mouth!
I took him for his six-month checkup at a nearby hospital. It cost about $9 to see the doctor, and then more to buy his vaccines. The way it worked is that we talked with the doctor, he prescribed the immunizations, we went to the pharmacy counter to buy them, and then went back to the doctor to have them administered. Oliver didn’t even cry for the first one—he was too busy smiling at the doctor!
Oliver is the center of attention everywhere we go. When Rupa comes over to see how things are going, the first question is always, “How is Oliver??” Sometimes the servants, especially the cook, Dave, will knock on our door to see if they can play with Oliver. One of the women who lives downstairs just came up to see if she could visit Oliver, but he’s sleeping so she left. What a stud!