it's always interesting to talk to people who see a place for a first time. in my experience (and this applies to many things in life i suppose) you don't really see what's right before your eyes. and yet we think we've got it all figured out. my mother recently brought to my attention that there are various things that i have never blogged about, namely the very basics of life here, so i would like to take this opportunity and catch up on that while i am still here and still have the chance to take pictures of what i'm experiencing.
so for this blog entry i would like to describe to you the very basic and simple ways of living that apply to about 80% of the population here. although newspapers boast about india being the place where 'it's gonna happen', the newly emerging economy and superpower, these headlines only talk about the so-called modernized india. true, go to any major city like bangalore, delhi or chennai and you will find high-tech facilities, jobs, american chain-stores, luxurious restaurants and successful companies that are bound to change the global economy in the years to come. it's always easy to hear about 'slums' in the cities - you know, the poorest of the poor - but the longer i have been here the more i have noticed that those people's lifestyle is in fact not very different from the life people are living in rural areas. if you look at it in terms of labels, i think the indian middle-class doesn't really exist. you either have extremely rich (and i mean EXTREMELY rich people - 4 of the top 10 richest people worldwide are from india!) or poor people, whereas the definition of 'poor' also varies throughout the countries, going from people living out of cardboard boxes to those who at least have a decent supply of electricity. but poor means poor, let's face it. and poverty is everywhere, not just in the slums of delhi.
the region i'm in, so more specifically my village perumalmalai, is quite small with only about 500-1000 people. it's slowly becoming something like a town - largely because it is so close to kodaikanal, the tourist hub, yet still maintains its natural beauty and calmness. what i'm trying to say is that yes, it's a somewhat modernized place, but no, it is by no means what we in the west would call modernized.
let me ask you something. when you think about basic and necessary utilities, what do you think about? water, electricity, a sewage system, garbage disposal, a constant supply of food, a washing machine, a phone, a nice house (i.e. a roof above our heads)..you know, stuff you 'can't live without'.
when i first came here, i didn't know what to expect because i might as well have ended up living in a small hut without light. it has truly been a privilege to be living inside the montessori school which really provides me with everything i would find at home (NOT INCLUDING 24 straight hours of power). however, i could have also ended up living like a true indian in perumalmalai.
sundays is washing day. there is a curve a couple of meters down from the school where there is a small, blue building with a huge yellow sign. people line up every weekend, bringing the weeks dirty laundry. inside the little blue building, there are three washing machines. for a fee of about 5-10 rupees, you can give them your clothes. every weekend, clothes are laid out on the street and hung up on strings alongside the road. when going from perumalmalai to kodaikanal, you can see endless fields of white sheets, billowing in the wind. let's just not mention exhaust fumes and the resulting accumulation of dirt on the freshly washed clothes. a washing machine is a luxury here. most of the people i know sit by open water and wash their clothes there, sharing a bar of soap between ten. imagine sitting at the mur-river with a weeks worth of dirty clothing :)
the first time i went inside a typical home, i was taken aback and not sure if it was a joke. from what i have seen so far, having more than one room is also considered a luxury. let me summarize it like this: there are four walls and a roof, several rolled up sleeping mats in a corner, a television in the other, and a cooking stove in another. the average size is about 10-20m2 and usually, 3-6 people are living there together. it's interesting how the definition of 'living' varies throughout the world, at least in the west the quality of living depends largely on how nice and big your house is, if you have nice furniture, light.. here, 'living' equals surviving and the house is only used for eating and sleeping. when walking through the village during the day, the doors of houses stand wide open - there is nothing to steal anyway - the people are out working. a house is something like a shelter here. do you see how wide it is?
if there is enough money, the shelter has a bathroom. if not, which is usually the case, there is a wall of bricks somewhere behind the house behind which people just go to do their business. it is not uncommon for me to leave the school in the morning and to look up only to find a naked child's bottom looking back at me. from the many houses i have been in, only one or two actually had a separate room inside the house - one of them even had tiles, the other just had a hole in the ground and a tap. can you imagine not having a bathroom?
my grandmother always used to (and still does - with passion) talk about the poor people in the third world who have nothing and whose standard of living we cannot even imagine. they're the ones who would love to eat the food that we let go to waste. i used to always nod and roll my eyes - the rants of an old woman! i understood what she was saying and i felt sorry for those less fortunate, yes, but i did not fully REALIZE it or see it with my own eyes. and this is why i really want to encourage people to travel and to see what it's like in different parts of the world! one can only dream of what we consider basic.
sunday is not only washing day for clothes, but also for the women's long, luscious black hair. of course, tradition says that every woman in tamil nadu (and particularly in this state i have never seen a woman who did not follow exactly this unspoken rule) grows her hair all her life, only cutting it when the husband dies, for example. usually, the hair is in a plaid with jasmin flowers on top to make it smell nice. i didn't understand right away that they only washed their hair once a week. on the weekend, you can walk around the villages and towns and see women sitting with their lovely hair spread out, chatting and waiting for it to dry. even the 80 year-old woman also living at the school has full, long and pitch black, voluminous hair. the trick? coconut oil. mind you, something i would never put in my hair. apparently it works miracles though. and what the women and girls do is they soak it all in oil, make a plaid and that plaid stays the same till it's sunday again. :) the purpose of it all? save water, save money on buying shampoo. by the way..think of all the money we spend on cosmetics and various beauty products..shampoo, conditioner, soap, dye..sigh. this is what it means to have the same hair-do as everyone else. it's just.. practical. long live individualism!
i have one more little snippet of life for you - how farm work is done here, or anything involving fields really. in our world, we have machines to do it all for us, taking care of the harvest, ploughing, fertilizing..whatever you can think of. as it seems, buying a machine like that and maintaining it over the years is costlier than hiring a bunch of coolie (i.e. daily) workers to do it all for you. mostly women, of course. it is not uncommon to go around and to see women carrying huge rocks, or sacks of rice/any harvest on their head. i swear, those things must weigh about 30kgs or so and they all just carry it on their heads (an art i have yet to master, of course). all work is done manually, and i mean ALL work. when you go past a construction site, there are no cranes. everything is done by hand and the only aid is ladders made of bamboo and knotted together by some piece of string (it doesn't just sound dangerous, believe me..). whatever it is, there are no machines involved. no cement-mixers. no tractors (the only ones i've seen were at chennai airport to transport luggage and at festivals, where they were decorated). someone once said it's like in the middle ages, technologically speaking.
and speaking of technology. yes, everyone has a tv and a cheap mobile phone here, but that's it. no ipods and laptops or normal computers even. no cameras or usb-sticks or walk-mans. no game-boys or play-stations, electric toothbrushes or hairdryers. there's nothing like it.
it's simple here, yes, but really it's just different. it has certainly made me realize that in order to lead a happy life, you really don't need about 99% of the technicalities and things that supposedly 'make life easier for us'. again. understanding that is not the same as actually realizing it :)
nom nom nom. after i had spent a couple of weeks here in perumalmalai, i received several emails from people saying that they wished they could dive into the culinary experiences of india, like eating lots of naan and chicken masala, dahl and drinking lassis. to tell you the truth and to give you an example, in all my time here (in the meanwhile it has already been more than four months - i will be back in austria in a little more than 8 weeks) i have NEVER eaten a single piece of naan. how on earth is that possible?, you may ask. to tell you the truth, it's just like when it comes to languages. there is no way to generalize an 'indian' language, and just the same there is no way to generalize 'indian' food. the things we get at restaurants in europe and the u.s. are typical for the north, that is the region around new delhi. the food that i eat down here in tamil nadu is fundamentally different and most of the people living here don't even know about specialties from states far away, like rajastan or punjab. the main reason for this is that the climate is different in every part of india, hence not the same crops can be grown throughout the country. in the east, the main dishes based on wheat. in the west, there is a lack of freshly grown vegetables and many preserves are used as substitutes. and the state of andhrapradesh is known for (i quote) 'using excessive amounts of chilies'.
so, this blog is dedicated to food, food, food. i have been thinking quite a lot about this subject in the past couple of weeks, mainly because it occurred to me pretty early on that indian and european eating habits are not just fundamentally different, no. there are entire worlds, even solar systems between them.
first of all, it is important to know that tamil nadu is supposedly famous for its hospitality, it is a deep belief that serving food to others is a service to humanity. therefore it is important that as a visitor, you do NOT say no to food when it is offered. there goes my glorious plan of losing weight while in india.
here in tamil nadu, the main food is rice. when i say main food, i mean that this food is included at least once in every meal, that is breakfast, lunch and dinner. i have not yet encountered a tamilian who does NOT eat three times a day. no meal can be missed. for them, the fact that i only eat once or twice a day is so foreign, that i have been asked multiple times if i am sick or, god forbid, dieting. meanwhile, both times my answer is no and i am met with confused stares. the people here (and not to generalize, let me clarify that i mean tamil nadu especially) eat three times a day and the portions are about 2-3 times as big as what we would consider 'gigantic'. i am not joking. someone once said to me 'without a full stomach, i only feel like half a person! and if my stomach is empty at night, i can't sleep!'
now you may ask, what exactly is it that tamilians eat, and what exactly is it that i have been eating all this time if not naan or dal? well, tamil nadu is 'famous' for a number of things, the most notable ones being 'idly', 'paratha', 'chapati', 'dosai', 'sambar', various 'chatneys' and pepper soup. you probably have no idea what i'm talking about. first of all let me clarify that the further south you go in india, the spicier the food gets in general. before i came to india, i couldn't even eat slightly spicy dishes - a bit of curry powder and i would start crying. in the meanwhile, it seems that either all of my tastebuds have died or that i have simply gotten used to eating extremely, and i mean EXTREMELY spicy foods. what has also helped is that esther, in comparison to raj, who cooks at bodhi zendo, puts a LOT of spices into whatever she's cooking. whatever it is she makes, you're bound to find a couple of chilis hidden somewhere - i became painfully aware of this when one day, she gave me what SEEMED like a simple plate of rice. the first spoonful proved that it wasn't JUST that. i guess i just had to learn the hard way.
coming back to the point of this blogpost, what exactly is indian food? well, let me give you an example. a typical tamil breakfast consists of a couple of idlys or dosais and some sambar.
idlys are quite possibly my favourite tamil food - they look like little clouds and they're just as fluffy. idlys consist mainly of grinded rice and lentils, which is left to ferment overnight. the mass is then poured into a form and steamed for 25 minutes - voila. i present: idlys.
dosais are my second favourite and happen to be the second dish, apart from idlys, that tamil nadu is famous for. dosais are like pancakes made from rice batter and black lentils (lots of carbs..), just they're thinner. they remind me of the french crepes.
mostly, idlys and dosai are served with sambar, which is similar to what we would call vegetable stew. it is based on a broth made from tamarind and dal and in it you can find everything, from tomatoes to potatoes to whole chilis to eggplant.
once you're finished with that (i was talking about a traditional breakfast), you've got to have a little bit of rice with some more sambar, just for the sake of it.
then, at lunchtime, the main dish is usually rice, chapatis or parothas with sambar and vegetables. parathas and chapatis you probably know as 'fladenbrot' or flatbread. you can fill them, or dip them into sambar, or just eat them with rice - mmh.
dinner is the most important dish (in the western world there's the saying: in the morning eat like an emperor, at lunchtime like a king and at dinnertime like a beggar - well, that seems to be reversed here). first, you have some rice and some sambar or vegetables or curry. then, you get a second helping of rice and combine it whatever you didn't take the first time. thirdly, you get some rice and pour a generous spoonful of pepper soup over it (and i mean actual PEPPER soup, not just soup with a bit of pepper. pepper soup brings tears to your eyes).
so, as i'm sure you can conclude from the way i describe it, tamil food is truly heavenly. still, i need my regular dose of western food. lucky as i am, the cooks at bodhi zendo cook pasta with vegetarian tomato sauce every sunday, and i cannot deny that i find myself looking forward to sunday all week long :) although i have to admit, i really do miss austrian/italian/european food in general. the simple pleasure of eating baguette and cheese and noodles and apfelstrudel and pizza..don't even get me started.
now apart from all of these separate dishes, there is also something like a set-meal that is eaten throughout the state. first of all, if you're eating in a very traditional restaurant, you usually get your food served on a banana leaf. the 'meal' - a socalled 'saapidu' - consists of rice and various types of sauces and sambars and is intended mostly for busy, working people who only have a limited amount of time to consume a maximal amount of food. for the average price of about 40 rupees (70 euro cents!) you can get as many portions of rice and sauces as you like. when you're finished, the banana leaf is rolled up and becomes food for the cows (that are normally grazing/standing somewhere outside the restaurant anyway).
personally, one of those saapidus equals an all-you-can-eat buffet so after i've had one of those, i don't need anything else all day. then again, that must be a european thing because for the people i usually dine with, that's just a normal, small meal :) (at one point in the beginning, i had lost weight. now i have gained it all back. the food here is just so GOOD)
a common misconception when it comes to india and food is that ALL indians are vegetarians, because hindus would never slaughter cows and while they're at it, they keep away from meat in general. i'm not sure about whether or not you thought this until now, but i certainly did before i came here. truth be told, that was one of the main reasons for my little vegetarian self-experiment. i thought that if everyone is vegetarian anyway, i might as well join in. i was proven wrong quite early on when esther asked me four times whether i really really was sure i didn't want to try any of her chicken stew or pork curry. maybe in my region it has to do with the fact that over 60% of the population are christians, and not hindus. but let me guarantee, everyone here eats meat. even in the tiny village of perumalmalai, there are three butchers along the 'main road'. still, my self-experiment worked. when i now have the choice between veg and non-veg food items, i automatically reach for the veg. and i want to keep it that way (possibly making one exception for the heavenly singaporean chicken rice when i'm there, but still).
well, what a coincidence. i've got to go and have lunch now - together with a friend, we taught esther how to make proper salad and dressing and since then, many staff members at the school have become fans of what they consider 'western' food :) got to get going now. i hope you're all hungry, because i certainly am!!
first of all an official 'disclaimer' and a welcome to everyone who is reading this blog. i've been getting an incredible and overwhelming amount of visitors from the most interesting locations (east timor, hawaii, sri lanka?!) and apparently some people i know here in india have also SOMEHOW stumbled upon this blog. so, HELLO AND WELCOME to everyone! can i just say, this blog is intended purely as a little place where i can update my friends and family about how my life is going. it's much more efficient than writing people the same thing over and over again in emails. so i really hope that whoever is reading this now is enjoying my little rambles about this beautiful country, and to the people i know here in india or who are from bodhi zendo directly - my apologies for not telling you about it, i wanted to keep it 'underground' a little. i hope that i didn't inflict upon any privacy issues or anything, this is merely my little place to write about my experiences and my thoughts and i hope you can somehow enjoy it.
and now, to the actual blog post!
i'm not sure whether or not the rainy season has officially started yet in tamil nadu. apparently, the rain starts in kerala, wanders up to delhi and then, via uttar pradesh and bihar comes back down again and reaches the southern-most part of india sometime in august. in theory. in practice, the rain started the day my mother arrived in india (and although i had been here 4 months already, i had only experienced rain approximately three times). it seems like she has marked her arrival adequately :) but more on that later. the rain is heavy, unexpected, and long-lasting. at the moment we experience about 5-6 hours of continuous rainfall per day and yes, it's nice when you can sit inside and all but after some time watching the rain come down gets boring. what also doesn't help much is the fact that the rain is THAT heavy, that for example power lines or telephone lines break down completely and can only be repaired again when the weather is nice. problem? yes. down at the school for example, we experienced a full 30 hours without ANY power. not only does that mean no light, but also no water filter (= no drinking water), no hot water to shower, no refrigerator, no charging phone/computer/ipod, no internet. and instead of boring myself to death in my room (in the dark, because i didn't have any candles left either) i decided to go up to bodhi zendo for the easter sesshin. father ama kindly invited me to attend freely (it's intense and seeing as my meditation practice is not that intense when i'm by myself it would just unnecessarily hurt my back) and so i spent the last week up here - WITH a decent power supply. ;)
a sesshin, like i have mentioned before, is a very intensive period of meditation. the sesshin i just attended lasted for 6 days and featured 8 hours of meditation each day. 8 hours. it sounds incredibly intimidating and also somewhat threatening to picture sitting completely still for 8 hours every day, concentrating the mind on the present. one of the most important aspects of attending a sesshin at bodhi zendo (which is, not to forget, a retreat center) is the fact that everything is held in complete silence. to give you a taste of what it's like to have 40 people living together without speaking for 6 days, i'll give you a little example. scene: at the breakfast table. mission: get the salt. getting up would be too disturbing for the general silence, so it's all dependent on body language and signs. first, stare at the person sitting closest to the salt. get them to notice you. when they look at you, irritated, quickly look at the salt. make that puppy-face and look back at the relevant person. repeat until it is understood that you really really need the salt, otherwise your scrambled egg is only half as good. upon receiving the salt, nod your head slightly and smile. sounds easy, right? but what about getting someone to close the window, or to put in your washing when it rains, or to tell you the time of the next sitting? it's not as easy as it sounds and as soon as doors close, quite a lot of secret whispering goes on. when the whole sesshin ends, it feels (or at least to me it felt like this) like you are entering a different, more colorful and lively world after coming from an intense period of concentrating purely on your existence in silence. it's really hard to describe and it's really life-changing to experience an entire week of only sleeping, eating and sitting. no one leaves the premises during a sesshin, and the next contact to other people is half an hour away. so there you have it. when it comes to sitting, you need to find a position in which you can sit comfortably for 25 minutes WITHOUT a single movement unless it's absolutely necessary (i.e. your leg feels like it's about to fall off because the blood flow has been interrupted for such a long time). i FINALLY found a position on the third day and could then purely focus on my breathing - which is one of the main exercises for beginners in zen meditation. count your breaths. you won't believe me when i tell you that you can NOT reach 10 without your mind drifting (and we're talking about those deeeep breathe-into-your-stomach-breaths). everytimezazen meditation does exactly that. whenever i now exit the meditation hall (= zendo) i feel highly aware of my surroundings and it all seems somewhat unreal. i notice details i have never before noticed in my surroundings and it seems like i think differently - more focusing on the present than anything else. also, i never thought i would actually enjoy meditation as much (my mother has been wanting me to try it for the last 8 years if i remember correctly and i never wanted to hear a word about it) and it has really helped and boosted my concentration. we even do it with the little montessori kids and the evening tuition kids for 5 minutes before the teaching program officially starts, and calming the mind works miracles.
and what has also been extremely nice is the fact that my mother has now finally arrived in india! she will be staying at bodhi zendo to meditate until june, and we will go back to austria together (just she will be there two weeks early because i will be staying with my dad in singapore for a bit before i come back completely) i went to madurai to pick her up (public bus, 4 hours, 40 rupees = 60 euro cents) and again met some lovely people on the bus. i've noticed in general that it's still really intimidating for me to go to a bigger city by myself, although i have been living here for such a 'long' time (4 months..how time flies!). in the community i'm in, people don't see me as a tourist. they know me, and i have my shopkeeper friends who help me out whenever i need something. going to madurai was by far the only trip i have so far taken within india that cost me a MASSIVE amount of money. because the guy in the hotel ripped me off, because the guy in the taxi ripped me off, and because even the guy at the coffee stall ripped me off. i have written about this issue before but it really annoys me how the general view of a western person in india seems to be: oh, you have money, GIVE IT TO ME. i see it even in small villages where small children are trained to go up to white people and immediately ask for money - it's all conditioned and hardly anyone actually sees you as a person who is interested in the culture and country. i know i can't generalize here, but wherever i have gone until now, money has always been the biggest issue between me and the people i encounter. it all seems to revolve around this one thing and it's incredibly sad, because the actual contact to the people you meet and get to observe gets altered.
we spent the day in madurai (our hotel was right next to the famous sri meenakshi temple - according to my friend farooq it should be a world wonder) and then paid a whopping 2500 rupees to get back to kodaikanal. yes, we could also have taken the public bus but they would have strapped all of my mum's luggage to the roof..and i'm just guessing here, but that probably would have ended badly.
having my mum here has been really interesting to tell you the truth - i had forgotten a bit what it was like to have someone to tell me what to do in this..motherly way haha. everything i have been doing since december 2010 has been MY decision and i was responsible for everything myself, had to learn and to figure out things without having my mum to consult. now that she's here all of that is coming back.
'wanda, your room looks dirty!'
'have you seen your towel? it used to be white - did you wash it with the COLOURED laundry?!?'
'watch out when crossing the street!' :)
not much has been happening here, which is why the weekly blog entries have turned into twice-per-month blog entries. the daily activities at school aren't that spectacular to talk about again and again, and now since the school holidays have started i haven't really done anything notable, apart from reading and doing yoga (since you don't need electricity for those things). the last day of school was quite as emotional as i thought it would be, and it made me dread having to leave india in just about two months. i feel that since january, i have grown very close to the children, i know their habits, their unique character traits, their strengths and weaknesses..whenever i sat down on the ground, at least 5 of the children would come up to me, sit on my lap, hug me from behind, kiss my cheek and tell me (in tamil) about things going through their mind. our montessori school is basically a three-year-programme, and many kids each year go on to actual elementary schools. this year, a total of 35 kids left and it's so sad to know that i won't be seeing them again anytime soon, unless i really decide to come back here every summer (which definitely has crossed my mind!). i wonder how much the children actually consciously notice when it comes to saying goodbye. tears in my eyes, i waved goodbye to my favourites dhanalakshmi, abdul, jaykumar, harini and vethavalli, hoping that maybe i have given them something along the way.
also, as the official school year ended, we had something like a little party/tea-drinking event. father ama came down from bodhi zendo and officially thanked everyone for all the effort made in the school year, and everyone got a little gift. the feeling of community was overwhelming - these people have become my family. (i felt embarrassed but i got to sit right in the middle of the whole event..:) ah, the hospitality.)
the next two days, all the teachers and i spent cleaning all of the montessori materials. this is only about a fifth of what we have.. and with that, the school year 2010/2011 ended at little flower montessori.
now. to end this post i would like to tell you a typical zen story. in zen, one of the major practices is solving koans (for some people). a koan is a somewhat paradoxical and strange question/statement, often with no real context, that has no rational/philosophical answer/broader meaning. for example: 'when it becomes wavy, what happens?' or 'listen to the no sound' or 'if it is burned and becomes remains, how do you hear it?'
my mother recently told me this story, and i would like to share it with you and encourage you to post your ideas in the comment section below :) this could be fun! once, there was a man fighting a bear. the only problem was, that the bear could read the man's mind and could therefore predict his every move. whenever the man planned to attack, the bear already knew beforehand and had already planned a counter-attack. how will the man be able to defeat the bear?
ps: before i forget, our school dog recently had 5 puppies! i didn't even know she was expecting haha the other day, james came up to me and said: did you see, our dog had 2 puppies! by the time i went to look, it was 4 and the next day someone told me there were 5. it's 3 males and 2 females, and they grunt like little piglets when you pick them up :))
don't get me wrong, i DO also work. which is probably why i've been neglecting this blog a little - i'm incredibly sorry about that. but last weekend i just had to go out a bit again. this time i went with amala to visit her family (or MY adopted indian family) and to go to kerala, the neighbouring state, for a day. the thing is that this coming week is the last week of the indian school year 2010/2011, so i've got quite a lot of administrative work to do - the last weekend before all of it seemed ideal so spend somewhere nice. one thing one should know about kerala is that it's just b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l. i swear, at least 5 people have independently from one-another told me that the state is unique in its beauty and of course, you've got to see things with your own eyes before you can completely understand what the other person is going on about. so really, i didn't know what exactly to expect. beauty lies in the eye of the beholder.
amala and i left to see her parents, who live in theni. theni is still in tamil nadu, but right in the plains. at this time of year, the plains have approximately the same temperature a fully heated sauna has. i'm not joking. the bus-ride to theni takes 4 hours (public bus for 30 rupees = 50 euro cents, if i may add) and when you stick your head out of the window, hot air is propelled into your face. to know what that feels like, blow-dry your face for a couple of minutes. you cannot breathe and your skin doesn't feel like skin afterwards. i seriously cannot understand how people survive down there. it rains probably every 2-3 months and unless you stay in the house all day, you're grilled alive!! at least that's what it felt like to me. amala wasn't even sweating (?!). as we were going down the hills, the view was once again spectacular. it's interesting how normally, you can't see very far because of pollution or something..here it's because of the heat. everything is just blurred and the air just stands still. i never actually realized how massive the palani hills actually are. they're the only mountains in the whole middle region of tamil nadu.
having arrived in theni after having changed the bus numerous times, we finally made it to the parents' house. i didn't feel it was appropriate to take pictures in someone's house, but let me describe it to you as well as i can. the whole thing is composed of 3 major rooms. there is a gigantic living room (furniture: 2 chairs, 1 cupboard with a television), a small kitchen (cramped) and a bedroom (with a bed and a fan. literally nothing else). the bathroom is located outside, indian style. there are no pictures on the wall, no carpets - only tiles, and it's just..sparse. no shelves, nothing. it kind of makes you realize all of a sudden that you don't really NEED anything else to survive. that's the classical indian home. amala's parents are extremely kind-hearted and open, they embraced me like a grandchild and although we couldn't communicate properly (whenever i say something in tamil, people are convinced that i understand EVERYTHING and just start talking..it's problematic). as it's typical, they were very hospitable and provided me with a gigantic meal every couple of hours. have i ever mentioned that i think indians are crazy for the amount of food they eat? it's not an insult, not at all, just...aaaah. i swear. a HUGE pile of rice in the morning, same at lunchtime, same in the evening. it's just carbs and it's soooo fattening for a westener..try just eating rice for a day and see if you can still move after that. combine that with a heat that is so stifling it's hard to breathe..and welcome to south india in april. :)
here goes kerala. i was convinced that this trip was going to be a 2-3 day trip to kerala, and not to theni. as it turns out, once indians start talking, they don't stop talking. so our 'trip' was reduced from one day to 3 hours. now let me describe to you the process of driving to kerala..it was most peculiar (what a splendid word). i'm not sure, but i think there's this mountain range separating tamil nadu from kerala. the closer we got to it (in the public bus again), the more quiet it got outside. the temperature slowly went down, less people were appearing on the roadside, the landscape changed from dried up palm trees to rich forests, like the ones you would find anywhere in austria. we slowly went up the mountain, mist around us and a slight breeze. i felt like i was in the book 'lord of the rings', enterind middle-earth for the first time or something. it was mystical. before i expected it, we had reached thekkady, a tiny town perched in the middle of two mountains. new state = new language, in this case malayalam. malayalam looks like a child re-designed the already complicated and weird looking tamil. but see what you think. (upper = malayalam, lower = tamil)
india?), we immediately bought tickets for the boat. someone also mentioned something about loooads of elephants, so it couldn't have been more perfect. can you believe it, but 3,5 months in india have passed and i have not seen a SINGLE elephant. i swear. it's embarrassing. but hey, i've seen plenty of other creatures. do you remember how in one of the first blog post i mentioned around 15 different animals you can find on indian roads? yeah. back to thekkady. the actual lake was gigantic and the whole place just looked spectacular. i cannot describe it properly but you must understand, after coming from a chaotic and dirty place like..well, all of india, kerala is just mesmerizing. it's CLEAN. and green.
and just so you know. i swear, i did NOT edit the colors on these. it's THAT intense.
i'll try to keep this short. we did NOT see any tigers, nor any elephants. as it turns out, the managers in said park rip you off (and as a foreigner you are ripped off anyway, because indians pay 25 rupees entry into the park and foreigners pay 300). they sell tickets for the boat ride all day long, although apparently everyone knows that it's a waste of money unless you go early in the morning or in the evening. being there at 2pm meant that we did not get to see anything spectacular (i saw a cow and 3 deer - incredible, right?) haha. but still the journey as entirely worth it, just being able to see a tiny part of the state that everyone constantly talks about. if you ever visit india, go to kerala. i'm serious. and can i just say, the food there is exceptionally good. tamil nadu is famous for very spicy stuff (which i don't even taste anymore, i think my taste buds are immune), and kerala is famous for sweet stuff. they have deep fried bananas, and banana chips, and banana rice..and humongous bananas. i have NEVER seen a 30cm banana, but they grow there. so there we were, having spent more money on bananas and little snacks than on the boat tour, going back to theni. before we left, amala couldn't help but pose in front of a giant souvenir shop that looked like a turtle. wooooo!
we spent quite a lot of time in amala's sister's house. although their english was very limited, they have a son who worked in italy for eight years so we were communicating in italian and - as i don't actually speak italian - a mixture of spanish and french. it's difficult to picture in this environment. amala's sister - gomathi - later had us take family photos together and said that i was always welcome in their home. it's been really interesting for me - in general, i've meet an incredible amount of people ever since i came here. and everyone has either told me stories or given me tips or a small gift or an idea that have really enriched me. i started making a list early on of things that i have 'collected', so to say, from other people and it's currently 2 a4 pages long. it includes places i have to visit, books i have to read, things i have to research, philosophies, addresses of people i have to go visit when i'm in various parts of the world and ideas for my future. going to see my indian family (especially when my mum is here!) is very high on top.
so at the moment i am sitting in my room in perumalmalai and enjoying the last saturday before school ends. it is the last school day on monday, which means that the summer holidays officially start in 3 days. i'll be on leave for 4 weeks and than give an intensive 14 days of internet and spoken english training to the entire teaching staff of the montessori school and the evening tuition. on june 1st, the new school year starts. it's quite sad really..out of our 85 registered children about 27 will be leaving the pre-school to attend regular, public elementary schools. those 27 will be replaced by 2-2,5 year old newcomers. according to the stories i've heard from the teachers, the first couple of months at school are horrendous because the children are simply still very ..wild. apparently they throw with food and cry all the time and just behave like actual 2 year olds haha. when i came here, we were in the middle of the school year and everyone had learned how to behave (really well if i may add!). so i spent the last week writing individual reports for each of our 85 children, sending letters to some sponsors, writing annual reports..it's a nice preparation for university, all the pressure and paperwork. :) i'll really miss the children that are leaving. there's this ending feeling to everything that's going on now, and it scares me a little because this is not even a real ending yet. i'll still see most of the kids when i leave. but still..six weeks without them will be very quiet. have i actually mentioned that i never thought i could take such a liking to these kids? they're just so cute..and it's the small things like when they come out of nowhere and hug me and kiss my hands or my cheek and just smile, that make staying here and working with them completely worthwhile.
it's hard to believe, but over 50% of my time in india has already passed. i'll be leaving here at the end of june and spending a bit of time in singapore before i'm coming back to austria on july 15th. time really passes faster than one would think!! at the moment, i'm just looking forward to thursday, though. mum's coming!! :D and it's just..interesting. although i've been in digital contact with so many people, i have had no direct contact to my life back in austria and now suddenly that's about to change.
going to pick her up in madurai will be interesting though. political elections are currently happening all over india. there are demonstrations everywhere at all times, even in my small village here there's lorries with sub-woofers driving around and people shouting out slogans, giving out flyers, singing songs, waving banners..everywhere you go, you see people (= men, because women are obviously not involved in politics or decisions.) april 13th, the official election day, has even been declared a public holiday by the government of tamil nadu. it's insane. people are warned not to go outside on these days as certain gangs can get very very..passionate about their political ideology and have no fear of violently reminding you of that. it gets dangerous sometimes. there's countless parties competing against each other, trying to form a coalition government.. and for me it's really interesting to see how this country functions politically. but it's probably not a good idea to philosophise too much about that on the internet though haha.
what i'm trying to say is that interesting times are coming and that i will keep you updated :) i will NOT neglect this blog.
nothing gives me the same thrill as having ground moving beneath my feet. as i said in the last blog entry a couple of weeks back, i took part in a week-long buddhist train tour through north india. and voila, here i am, back again and so so so sick of trains. but first things first :) the actual tour was intended to show travelers and pilgrims the places where buddha himself spent most of his life, where he was born and where he died, where he preached and lived. as you know i'm not much of a religious person at all - the only thing i like about buddhism is the fact that the teachings are more like discoveries as to how to live your life so that you can be happy - it's very down to earth and absolutely applicable in most cases! anyway. i decided to take part in the tour primarily because it would give me the chance to see the country a bit. i've mentioned this before, but india consists of 32 separate states, each of which can be considered as a separate country - the language is different, as is the distribution of wealth, religions and customs are other ones.. in the south especially christianity is a popular religion, whereas in the north most of the population is either hindu or muslim. i feel that india itself can be compared to the european union in a way: there's many cultures and peoples mixed together in one union, sharing a common currency and certain economic benefits - same goes for india, just it's all in one country! on one of my tamil learning books for instance it says 'by languages we are many, but as a nation we are one'. it's a pretty accurate summary of what india is, with its 24 official languages haha.
the actual buddhist journey only lasted for 8 days, just it started in delhi of all places, which meant that ganesh, amala and i had to somehow get from kodaikanal to delhi. it's funny how in austria, it only takes you about 7 hours to cross the entire country by train..in india, you can travel for over 50 hours in one direction straight and STILL be within india! it wasn't THAT bad for me. we only had to sit through a 12 hour bus ride from kodai to chennai (the capital and most metropolitan city of tamil nadu, my state), and a 36 hour train ride from chennai to delhi. yes, i spent 36 hours on a train! and it was great fun. one wagon had about 120 beds in it and in the separate compartments there were 3 on each side of the wall. what that means is that during the night it was not only extremely loud, but the whole thing got dirty really easily (have i mentioned indian-style squat-down toilets before? try those in a MOVING train). still, i got to meet some really interesting people - like a group of young arab israelis who were traveling to delhi to find themselves in buddhism. :) there were undoubtedly two things that i would describe as being 'just fantastic' during that 36 hour trip. 1) literally every 2 seconds, some guy comes along with a giant basket of rice/chocolate/biscuits/chips or a giant can of coffee/tea and tries to sell it to people. business must be really good, because he kept coming back. on the train, where you just sit and talk for half the time you're on it, eating and drinking is the social activity #1 - and i was right in the middle. indian coffee is SO weak and the cups are TINY. my record lies at 17 cups of coffee in one day - and i still felt tired. 2) you know those pictures you find on the internet with people traveling ON trains and buses rather than IN them? as we were going through the vast countryside (which kept on changing from desert to swamp to city area to giant lake) we saw loads of those buses and trains. and the good thing about all indian trains is that the doors aren't locked. so, yes, you can just open the door while the train is going full-speed through india, sit down, smoke a cigarette/drink some coffee/wave at people going by/take pictures.
we arrived in delhi and immediately checked into our room. i don't know if i can describe this to you properly, but delhi is like an indian, chaotic and dirty version of new york without skyscrapers. what i'm trying to say is that there are 16 million people living in that city (twice the size of my whole country..just sayin'), you see people from many, many different places, and delhi is the city of contrasts when it comes to rich and poor. we went on this sightseeing trip (because we had the whole day to pass before we had to board yet another train - the ACTUAL tour) and the center of the city - connaught place - is clinically clean. as you drive by the endless gardens and palaces of various ministers and famous people, you notice how dead that part of the city is. there is not a single person walking on the road, the sidewalks are spotless, the trees are trimmed, the air is clean. and i swear, if you go one street further, the slums begin. slums need not necessarily be on the outskirts of a city, no. they can be anywhere. in chennaigucci suits in their bmws. politically seen, there is no such thing as insurance or health care or financial aid for people in need (stuff that again, we take for granted) the same scenario is true for delhi. obviously, seeing as we were on a tour-bus, the bus just avoided all of those areas and only showed us, lovely naive and unknowing tourists the 'real' delhi - the shopping centres, the shopping streets, the high-end restaurants and of course all of the famous palaces and archaeologically important landmarks, like the so-called 'gate of india'.
did you know that some famous guy built a replica of the taj mahal in the middle of delhi?
or that mahatma gandhi's grave is on a hill, also in the centre of delhi, overlooking the whole city?
or that indira gandhi is celebrated a hero just as much as mahatma gandhi is because she was the first and only woman (left-wing) prime minister india ever had?
in delhi, the number one method of transport are auto-rickshaws (that word reminds me of my montessori kids - we teach them words like rickshaw and chicken and some of them can't say 'sh' or 'ch', but say 'th' instead. rickthaw! thsicken! haha). we were three people traveling with gigantic pieces of luggage..in ONE rickshaw. because that's just how it's done in india! the rickshaws swerve through the rest of the traffic like it's nothing (just too bad there are about 3 million rickshaws in delhi alone haha), they can go really really fast and you can shake hands and talk with people in surrounding vehicles because rickshaws have no doors or windows. it's likea bench on three wheels. i would LOVE to bring one of those back home..:D
our actual trip started last saturday. we had to go to one of delhi's 5 or so train stations (of course, ours was the one that was the furthest from where we were staying). the moment we arrived, the whole 'omg, you're a tourist!'-scenario began. we (technically just i, because my two travel partners have dark skin) were welcomed with a flower chain, a 'typical indian refreshment' (oh my god, indian tea!) and a red mark on our forehead. the group with which we traveled consisted of about 35 people, out of which only 4 or 5 were actual buddhist followers - the rest were, just like me, just somehow interested in the buddhist teachings and therefore also in the places where buddha lived and preached (if he really existed). and i won't bore you with the exact places and dates and times and all, but i'll only show you some of my personal highlights of the trip. basically, the trip was 8 days long and every day, we would get up at around 5am and go sightseeing till the evening. during the night, the train would go 200kms further and we would stop again at 5am.. quite exhausting! at the end of the last blog-post there's a map of all the places we visited..so add kodaikanal-chennai-delhi and back to it and you'll see what i was doing the last two weeks haha!
anyways. we were told that our group was somewhat extraordinary, because normally the actual trip is like a pilgrimage for really really devout buddhists. normally, around 300-400 people participate but our tour-date was already slightly off-season (because of the heat..i haven't even mentioned it yet. wherever we went, we were literally melting. it had at least 40 degrees in the shade and let me just say, this is the north, not THAT far from the himalayas, and it's march and not even properly summer yet. thank you, global warming!) so we had a really lovely time. our group was like a moving sangha (i.e. a 'family' of buddhist followers) and i met some absolutely lovely people who have, again, really opened my eyes to so many new things and places this world has to offer. we had a fantastic time and at one point we, slightly illegally, bought ourselves a bottle of cheap indian beer (we = me and our bed-neighbours in the train, to lovely men from sri lanka who have been living in canada for the past 30 years) and drank a little in the middle of the night. good times.
the actual trip went to many many places, including sravasti and kushingar, gorakhpur and rajgir (all of which are places where buddha taught/lived/died at some point in his life, basically they're all ruins and look quite similar haha so not THAT special for non-believers. there was only one place with a GIGANTIC, golden statue of the sleeping buddha - in the place where he died, or as the buddhists say, enter mahaparinirvan (nirvana))
..a famous tibetan site on top of a hill (45 minutes of climbing a hill - the view was spectacular)
..the ancient university of nalanda, built and used in the years 427 - 1100 approximately!!!)
..and lumbini (in nepal. i crossed the nepali border, yes, and i have a visa in my passport to prove it haha, but south nepal looks exactly like india, just it's even poorer. the culture is the same (mostly hindus), the caste system is enforced and the facial features and clothing is just like what you would find in india. in order to see the real country and what we know of it, you have to go into the mountains and to kathmandu, which was around 800kms from where we were. so nepal was entirely unspectacular! what was fun though was crossing the actual border. there is a wall where india ends and a wall where nepal begins, but there are about 5metres in between. no-man's land in the most literal of ways!)
HOWEVER there were several other highlights. one of them was the very first stop, bodhgaya, the place where buddha attained enlightenment. you know how one of the symbols of buddhism today is a fig tree? well, it's a bodhi tree (i.e. 'enlightened' tree) and it symbolizes the one and only bodhi-tree that stands in bodhgaya, india, where buddha, 2500 years ago, sat and finally became enlightened. buddhists come there from all over the world to meditate and to try to catch one of the somewhat sacred leaves falling to the ground. a tree like that takes between 100 and 2000 years to fully grow so it was seriously impressive. the whole energy at bodhgaya was just indescribable, there were tibetan monks and indian monks and japanese tourists and yet, the atmosphere was extremely calm and peaceful. colorful tibetan prayer-flags were billowing in the wind as everyone walked under the tree, amazed by its size and beauty and by the beautiful carvings in the temple behind it. even as a non-believer it feels special to be in a place like that, a place that holds so much meaning for so many people.
another highlight was varanasi. varanasi was one of the two 'extra' stops we made. it's the 'oldest living city' in the world (which means that it is the oldest city in the world that has been continuously inhabited for the last 5000 years or so!!) and it is situated on the banks of the holy river ganges. for hindus, it is the most holiest place. hindus come from all over the country to cremate their loved ones on the river-bank and to scatter their ashes in the river. and yes, the ganges itself is just dirty and disgusting BUT, hindu religion also says that once you bathe in the river, you are freed from all sins. basically, and logically speaking that means that as a hindu, you can commit a murder and immediately go and bathe in the river ganges and it'll make it morally okay for everyone. controversial much? anyway. the cremations that you can see along the river-banks are spectacular, to put it simply. bodies are wrapped in colorful paper and with flowers and are carried down to the bank, where there are crowds of people and cows and piles of wood. around 20-30 bodies are burned at the same time in one place. it is unique, and let me emphasize on the word UNIQUE to see someone setting fire to a body and to see a cow eating off the flowers just seconds before. we had booked a boat-ride along the river and went past the crematory sites very very slowly..i have never seen anything like it. of course, travel companies make big money with letting tourists park their boats DIRECTLY in front of a crematory site, which is just disrespectful and tasteless. imagine cremating a family member and having 250 tourists clicking pictures of it. i felt slightly better about our boat, because we 'only went by'. as a sign of respect for all the souls floating in the river, we each lit a candle and put it in the river. it's breathtaking to be on a boat in the middle of a river and to have thousands and thousands of lit candles floating beside you.
the last highlight of the tour (and i promise, i will not bore you any longer after this) was the...*drumroll*..TAJ MAHAL! obviously not part of the actual buddhist pilgrimage, it's a little treat at the end of the exhausting 8 days of pilgrimage. we arrived at around 7am and immediately boarded a bus to go there and, as you can guess, because it's one of the seven world wonders it was already PACKED with tourists. the whole procedure of getting inside the place is interesting, foreigners (not indians!) have to cover their feet while indians are 'allowed' to go barefoot, foreigners pay 750 rupees to get inside while indians pay 10 (and that's EXTREMELY annoying because it's not only at the taj mahal, but also at any museum or archaeological site..foreigners are literally ripped off), and foreigners are only allowed to enter with a water bottle manufactured inside india (!) so no volvic or evian bottles are allowed. the place itself is spotless. and fascinating. you walk through gates and gates and parks before you slowly start to feel that something big is coming closer. and SUDDENLY, there it is, standing in all its glory. the taj mahal. a love monument built by a mughal emperor for his late wife. it took 22 years (!!!!) to build, there were thousands of people working 24 hours a day and when it was done, the emperor chopped off their hands so that they could never build something like it ever again. (do you know how long it takes to make a tiny marble elephant with a couple of stones inside the marble? we went to a marble factory afterwards. it takes a week to build something the size of a fist.) the whole taj mahal is, once you get closer, something i cannot properly describe. the detail it was built with, all the engravings, all the patterns, the inside..it's spectacular and i will let pictures speak for themselves. just one common misconception - it's by far not as big as you would think!! in fact, it is smaller than the average mosque you would find somewhere!
beautiful, isn't it? oh, and i decided to kiss it just because i thought that it was my ONLY chance to ever kiss the taj mahal haha. so yay, i've been very close to one of the seven world wonders!
now to something else. because this was an organized package tour (i still don't understand why i decided to go on that one specifically, package tours are extremely unlike me!) everything was laid out to be satisfying for the tourists. what i'm trying to say is that i would really like to encourage everyone reading this NEVER to go on a package tour - you do NOT see things the way they are. we were traveling through the beautiful countryside and through villages in a luxurious a/c high-tech bus, we saw countless villages and the faces of thousands of people, but we were like in a capsule just traveling through and only stopping in front of the most expensive hotels for lunch and dinner. we got to see NOTHING of the people and of the culture, which is think was really really sad and disappointing. some people in the tour kept on saying 'you know, i heard indian food is really awful, especially the food you get on the street. who eats food from the street stalls? people are just sick in this country' and i just exploded, literally. when i asked the guy if he had even been here, talked to anyone, tried the 'disgusting' street-stall food, he answered no. i walked away. i hate people sometimes. the point of what i'm trying to say is that there are so many different sides of a country that you can only see once you spend time with locals and get over the fear of talking to someone who is different from you and trying to understand what their life is like. what was especially awful was the fact that the further north you go in india, the poorer people get. tamil nadu is, in comparison to uttar pradesh or bihar (two other states) an extremely rich region - although it is by no means rich when compared to any other country, of course. but in bihar, uttar pradesh and delhi, there are loads and loads of children on the street, begging. it's heartbreaking and it is unwise to give them money because they are part of organized gangs that make up to 60000 rupees a day (1000 euros that ultimately go to the gang-leader) but the fact that a child's life is worth nothing, not worth proper food or education or love, is disgusting and heart-breaking and shocking and appalling. but that's life in india. wherever you go, to whichever tourist site, there are children just flocking to the buses, begging for food, begging for money. you see the need in their eyes but you know that no matter how you want to help, they are lost. it's a government problem, it's an education problem and here i go again. this country is in a race against time. everything in the outside world is going by so fast that there is no time here to take care of the basics. water, food, electricity, education, security. so there is just chaos and the gap between rich and poor is growing. the few NGOs that are doing effective work have far too little power and there is hardly any networking between them..as a foreigner, you get a feeling of helplessness when you travel around because you know that although you are doing a good and important job in your community, there are still millions and millions and millions of people who are in need.
what i'm trying to say is that i would like to encourage people to go abroad and to make a change and to help, because it doesn't take a qualification to do that. you learn SO much and the longer i have been here, the happier it makes me to know that it is such an enrichting experience not only for me, but also for the people i work with. to come back to what i was trying to say with this paragraph - i will probably never do a package tour again because you spend a whole lot of money on getting to see sights, but ultimately, you cannot say that you have seen a country and its people, which is in my opinion what counts more.
this picture down here pretty much sums up most of india for me. tourism, animals, dirt and children being everywhere just not in school. see what you think.
to end this post let me just say, it took me another 36 + 12 hours to get back to kodaikanal and i was showered with hugs and kisses from around 200 kids and 15 teachers when i got back. it's like coming back home to a family. and speaking of family, my mum is coming in less than three weeks and i cannot wait to introduce her to my world!! :)
speaking of going back, when we were going back from delhi to chennai, the so-called 'holi' festival was going on. 'holi' is celebrated mostly in the north of the country and first, people splash you with water and seconds later throw a bag of bright, colorful powder over you. once, twice, three times.. it happens all day long and at the end of it, the whole country is literally covered in colors (i stole the first picture from google images just to show you what i mean haha) the colors don't come off for at least 3 days! luckily, i spent the critical time on a train so i wasn't hit..only by some water as i was walking to the delhi train-station but the thrower was too slow to hit me with the powder too haha)
i hope that everything is going well wherever you are reading this from. i'm now off to continue reading a book entitled 'a fine balance' by rohinton mistry, a lovely piece of fiction about india. if you're at all interested in this country, its customs, the way families work and what life is like for people now and what it was like a couple of generations ago, read this book. it's considered to be a classic :) love from perumalmalai!
