Fresh Milk?

Processed milk in India is, well, very processed and contains an array of lovely chemicals.  It’s sold unrefrigerated in boxes or in little plastic bags, and needless to say, it tastes funny.  I don’t like it, so I haven’t been drinking much milk and I’m sure that I haven’t been getting enough calcium either.

I decided to do my best to get fresh milk, which is delivered in tins by men on motorcycles.  I see them everywhere on the roads, so I know that fresh milk exists.  I called the housing office to see if they could help me arrange delivery of fresh milk a couple times a week.  This is an abridged version of our conversation:

“Uh, yes, I’m wondering if you could help me get fresh milk delivered?”

Fresh milk, madam?

“Yes, sir, fresh milk.”

Yes, madam.  There is a boy who delivers packaged milk every morning.  How much should he bring to you?

“No, no.  I mean fresh milk, not packaged.”

Yes, madam.  Then you can get fresh milk at the canteen.  They serve it hot.

“No, I’m pretty sure that is not fresh milk.  It tastes like packaged milk.  I don’t want packaged milk.”

No, madam.  That is fresh milk…

“No, it is packaged milk.”

Yes, madam.  Fresh packaged milk.

Ok, so I’m clearly using the wrong vocabulary.

“I’d like unprocessed milk, sir, directly from the cow.”

Oh!  You want cow’s milk?

“Uh, yes, cow’s milk.  Fresh, right from the cow.  Unprocessed.”

Now we’re getting somewhere.

Ok, madam.  No problem.  I’ll call the boy who comes from the village everyday and see if he can bring cow’s milk.  How much do you want?

“Great.  I’ll take two liters.”

So I think the problem is solved, and I’ll be getting fresh milk; I just have to call a day before I want it.  Then, the phone rings.

Two liters is a problem madam.  It is not easy to bring two liters.

“Ok, so is it easier to bring less or more?”

No, no madam.  Two liters is a problem.  Very hard to bring two liters.

“Ok, but how much can I have?  Is one liter easier or is five liters easier?”

Madam, two liters is not possible.  How much would you like?

“I’ll take one liter.”

Ok, one liter.  It is better. Uh, madam, it is okay if it is buffalo milk?

“Sure.”  (“Buffalo” here are what I think are water buffalo, not bison.)

Later that night, someone knocks at my door and hands me two liters of fresh milk.  By fresh I mean unpackaged, unprocessed, unchemicalized, and straight from the cow.  Er, buffalo.

Oliver's Playdate at Hauz Khas

Hauz Khas means “royal water tank” and seems to be an overlooked historical site in Delhi.  It is located in a neighborhood called Hauz Khas Village, near the Hauz Khas metro stop of all places.  Hauz Khas Village is a string of upscale but interesting shops and winding offshoots, and includes Kunzum, a traveler’s café that serves excellent coffee (yes, real drip coffee of the best sort, not Nescafe) and tea as well as delicious dipping biscuits and is a pay-as-you-like setup.  It’s also a photo gallery and is full of great travel books and of course, interesting people.  Wonderful find by Sarah.

Oliver at Kunzum Cafe

Anyway, Hauz Khas.  Parts of it are 800 years old!  Entrance to the ruins is free, you can climb all over the place, the signage is informative, and it is better upkept than many other tourist sites in Delhi.  I’m thinking especially of the Red Fort, supposedly the icon of icons, that is expensive to get in, lacks signs with historical information (or any information, for that matter) and is rundown and seeping with herds of leering creepsters.  Beyond the ruins, Hauz Khas is a legitimately nice park to have a picnic and just pass the day basking in the sun.  We found a nice place and plopped down to play with Oliver and relax.

Near us was a group of laboring women who were taking their lunch break with their very young children.  I had noticed them as we sat down and was, in all honesty, hoping to avoid interaction because they were dirty and the kids all had runny noses and who knows what else.  I soon realized that I would have to get over my apprehensions, open up, and relax as the kids, being curious, approached us.  At first they just sat next to Oliver, looking at him, looking at his toys, then started gently touching him and smiling.  Oliver, being the little flirt he is, was smiling at them as well.  Children are so innocent; they are completely blind to boundaries to which the most educated of adults hold themselves.

Little by little, we started playing more and more with the kids, talking as much as we could with their mothers, and wondering what the other families around us (fairer skinned and upper class) thought of our interaction with these “street people.”  We had such a great time watching the kids play with Oliver’s rattle ball that we made sure that the mothers understood that they could keep it and that they hadn’t taken it from us.  One of the kids squeezed himself into Oliver’s sweatshirt, so I counted that as gone as well; it’s not like it would break me to buy him another one, but these kids probably froze outside every night.  Their mothers went back to work nearby, leaving a very small baby in the care of a child that surely wasn’t even two years old.  Heartbreaking—imagine having to leave a defenseless baby with his siblings who are themselves so young that they could easily smother him or otherwise hurt him without realizing it.  Witnessing things like this while surrounded by plenty, as a Mercedes drives by, for example, make me feel so small here.  I can watch this baby for a few hours, but what will happen tomorrow?

I must say that inequality in India is sickening.  I am not saying this from a perspective that blindly and “patriotically” sees the US as perfect or even the best.  I can say that being in India has made me realize that for all our imperfections and shortfalls as Americans, the idea of justice and equality really is hammered into our psyche, and for the most part, we live it out.  It bothers me, and I think I can safely say that it would bother any random American, that servants of the upper class sleep in shacks without proper beds (euphemism: servants’ quarters) either outside or in a separate part of the mansion even though there are extra bedrooms inside.  It bothers me that servants are invariably darker than their employers.  It bothers me to go to a fancy luncheon, where everybody is eating and drinking from plentiful tables, everybody except the dark-skinned maid taking care of some rich woman’s children.  It bothers me to see servants belittled instead of given thanks, especially when people are so incredibly dependent on their servants for basic, basic things...I swear that if somehow every servant went on strike, the entire country would screech to a halt.  It bothers me that my favorite bar of chocolate costs a little under $2, which is approximately equal to the official minimum daily wage.

Why?  Why is it like this?  Is it the “democracy” that is only a façade, and a crumbling one at that?  Is it the rush to emulate the US at its worst, to consume material goods like there’s no tomorrow?  To pursue “development” at all costs?  Too often, it seems to be no more than a dog-eat-dog whirl in which no one cares or pays attention to the “collateral damage,” to use a phrase from Arundhati Roy.  In her book Listening to Grasshoppers: Field Notes on Democracy, she tells the untold stories about the elephants in the room: politicians who overtly call for the extermination of Muslims and the lowest rungs of society, who publicly boast of the number they have killed, how truly democratic movements for freedom from military occupation in Kashmir and from corporate mining interests in central India are strategically labeled as “extremist,” “Maoist,” “Naxalist,” to make way for their demise.

We played with some kids at Hauz Khas; I felt ashamed that I had intended to ignore them.

Amritsar

Amritsar is located in northern India and is home to the Golden Temple, the most holy site of the Sikh religion.  We traveled by train with our friend, Devika, on a quick and relatively unplanned weekend trip.  After finding cheap accommodation near the Golden Temple, we headed off to the Wagah Border Ceremony.  Wagah is a border crossing near Pakistan approximately 30 kilometers from Amritsar, where an unexpected tradition has latched on.  Unexpected especially considering tense relations between the two countries and the mass of serious military deployments on both sides of the border.  Every evening before sunset, soldiers from the two countries march toward each other, kicking their legs high in the air in order to show bottom of their feet, a sign of disrespect.  Masses of Indian nationals (and occasional foreigners) gather to watch.  A lesser crowd shows up on the Pakistani side.  I’ve never been in such a huge, densely packed crowd, and I found the level of nationalistic fervor a bit unnerving.  Security was present to get near the border, but there was such a sea of people that they just poured across the barriers.  See this link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YeSX6AZ5xEI) which was taped from the Pakistani side.  It was much more crowded when we were there.  We were actually sitting on the road where they march with hundreds of other people.  Sardines.  Exteme breastfeeding, anyone?

We ate some delicious food while in Amritsar, which is also known for being a spice processing hub.  I think our favorite was sarson ka saag, cooked mustard greens.  Delicious.  Devika explained the Hindi--sarso is mustard, and ka saag refers to the way it is cooked.  I said in a very Minnesotan way, "So, you could say palak (spinach) ka saag too?"  My cinematic mind instantly created a scene in which two foot armies are charging toward each other, Braveheart-style, one yelling "SARSON KA SAAG!" and the other screaming "PALAK KA SAAG!" just as passionately.  It was the joke for the rest of our time in Gurgaon; it stuck that well.

We headed to the Golden Temple early in the morning.  Stunning.  It was built in the early 1500s, and really is covered with pure gold.  It was torture for the feet since we had to remove our shoes to enter the premises, which is entirely covered by freezing cold marble.  Already at 7:00 in the morning, the line to enter the temple was massive and as densely packed as Wagah, so I opted out knowing that Oliver would need to be fed and changed in the hours that I would have been standing in line.  On my way out though, I realized that I had left the ticket for retrieving my shoes with Sarah and Devika.  The compassionate shoe room men let me in and I searched for nearly a half hour before realizing that I could call Devika and ask what my tag number was.  The problem was that the local language is Punjabi, which uses different numerals, so Devika had to try to describe what the numbers looked like before asking someone standing nearby what the numbers were and then talking on the phone to one of the shoe room men.  After a 45-minute ordeal, I recovered my beloved $2.50 sandals.

While waiting in line, Sarah and Devika were approached by two village girls who were very eager to meet a foreigner (Sarah), who they said looked like Cinderella.  We later joked if they meant before or after the fairy godmother, since Sarah isn't exactly known for being a hygiene queen.  Devika acted as the interpreter as they asked question after question, and Sarah wanted to make the point that she works on the land too (she’s pretty much self-sufficient in food at home in SD, only buys flour to make bread and I think butter, milks her goats and makes cheese).  Since the crowd was so dense, everybody was keenly listening to their conversation, and when Devika said in Hindi that Sarah had goats, too, bewildered whispers of “goats goats goats goats goats goats” reverberated through the crowd.

Meanwhile Oliver was busy making friends with turbaned locals.  I found the men in Amritsar to be far less creepy than in Gurgaon and Delhi; I would even say that they weren’t creepy but genuinely friendly (except young men, of course, who seem to be creepy everywhere in India).  According to me, Sikhs seem to have a reputation for being trustworthy, honorable, fierce in battle but with a soft side.  I definitely found this to be the case (the soft side part, I didn’t get into any fights!) as people admired Oliver and passed him around.

OLIVER GOT HIS FIRST TOOTH on the way to Amritsar!  We knew they were slowly coming in and Devika was the first to spot it.  Exciting, but as the second one (he now has the bottom two) came in he cried inconsolably for three hours on the train ride back.

Devika with Oliver, pre-3 hour crying spree