Trading In

Dear dedicated reader,

This Saturday, I trade in my chalk and duster for a backpack and train tickets. I couldn’t be more excited or more nervous.

Living in India and traveling in India are so different that the latter is like being in another country altogether. Distinguished by my backpack, my camera, my white skin, no matter how long I’ve lived here, no matter what I wear, no matter how well I speak the language, every day becomes my first day in India.

It’s a phenomenon I joke about often and is best illustrated by the following three connected anecdotes from our most recent trip to Mumbai:

Having taken the well beaten path of least resistance (read: Lonely Planet India) in picking our accommodation for our five day sojourn, Melissa and I found ourselves in the known tourist district of Colaba at the southern-most tip of Mumbai. Our hotel had a nice view of the Taj (the nicest hotel in India) from its crumbling location four stories up and one block away. Our welcome to our exulted lodgings was having to politely ask a sleepy eyed construction worker to move just as he was raising his hammer to strike a chisel against the sandbag reinforced wall of the stairwell so we could continue the endless climb to the lobby.

After a refreshing non air-conditioned sleep in our surprisingly bed bug free beds, Melissa and I parted ways in the morning after an indulgent American style breakfast at a local cafe: she, to take her GRE (the whole purpose behind our visit) and me to take in what I could of the sites. I had set my heart on braving the rickety ferries of Mumbai harbor to visit Elephanta Island, home to some temples carved into stone rock faces.

There is a wariness that you must always wear as a traveler here, one that I’ve all but dropped living in the village. The hardened urban shell that I’d perfected while living in Delhi is cracked and in disrepair from living in Kadod, a place where guile is relatively unknown and where its does exist, it is unpracticed and mostly harmless. Walking alone towards the ticket booth for Elephanta Island, however, I felt as one who doesn’t exercise for a long time: nervous I would strain myself or become winded from the interactions I knew were coming.

It was not without reason. As soon as I started walking towards India Gate, one of the most well known landmarks in Mumbai, I was hassled with “Madam, photo?” “Balloon?” “Magic Balls?” “Peanuts?” “Ice Cream?” “PHOTO!”

I kept walking, my eyes looking straight forward. I had a goal and I was going to make it. Arriving at the ticket booth, I stopped, my assured exterior disappearing as I eyed the lines of windows with men sitting behind each. Signs in India have a crowded quality that makes it difficult if you are relying on them to find what you want easily. It is, however, essential that you locate what you want immediately; if not –

“Madam, what are you looking for?” Someone asked me almost immediately.

I decided to just be forthcoming. “I want to go to Elephanta Island,” I said.

“I sell the tickets madam,” this random man told me as he pulled out a bundle from his pocket. “120 rupees, madam”.

The guidebook had said 90 – but my guidebook, leftover from my time in Delhi, is four years old, so I hesitated once again. “Is there a window?” I asked him.

“That window is for tours, ma’am,” the man said.

“If it’s all the same to you, I think I’ll just try the window and see what happens,” I said.

He shrugs, uninsulted. “If you wish, madam, but that man and I are in business together.”

The man at the window confirmed this and I bought the ticket from the bundle in the first man’s outstretched hand. He directed me toward the ferry loading dock, saying if I hurried I could catch the next one. I lit up with the brief glow of success when the man at the dock demanded 120 rupees and I produced the ticket for the same amount from my pocket. I had successfully navigated one tourist trap! The joy was short-lived.

I had harbored hopes that I would somehow make friends aboard the ferry with other tourists in the same easy way that I had when I was backpacking in Ireland; however, as I eyed the boat’s other passengers, I realized with some gloom that there was no one in my age range aboard. It was mostly Indian couples – there was one other British looking man, but he looked to be about 60 and not very friendly so I gave him a wide berth and for the next hour watched the approach of the Island from the front of the boat.

As soon as the boat hit dry land and I set foot upon the dock, I felt a hand thrust into mine. I looked into the eyes of its owner, who introduced himself as Krishna. Employing tactics I myself used as a canvasser for Greenpeace that one ill-fated summer, he did not ask me if I wanted a guide (I did) but rather merely acted as if it were an assumption. We agreed on the short 1.5 hour tour of the Island, he outlined our itinerary and I agreed. This temple-touting is a common phenomenon here and while some travelers hate it, the historical sites have such poor signage here that I find that, even if what the touts are telling me isn’t true, it’s still more interesting than just looking at the edifices on my own. I find this especially true at religious sites where I feel an inherent ill-comfort.

The tour itself was a whir: he talked quickly, gave me time to take a picture and then abruptly moved onto the next feature. The tour, while detailed, was so rushed I barely had time to process any of the information he was feeding me. I resolved that I would simply go back to the caves to look them over again once he had finished with me. However, after the end of the hour and a half, I somehow found myself sitting in a café belonging to his brother’s sister, drinking filtered water while I paid for him to drink a rather expensive beer. Trying to keep things polite and following the rules of hospitality that I’ve learned in Kadod, I allowed him to lead me through all of this and once his beer was finished, somehow found myself agreeing to go back to the boat and go back to the mainland. On the way, the other foot fell: He wanted me to pay him 1000 rupees for the tour. And the best part? I did it! I just did not, after being led around by him for the past two hours, have the heart to haggle. He told me he thought I had a very agreeable personality. If someone gave me twenty dollars, I’d probably say that about them too.

On the boat on the way home, I kicked myself in the ambivalent way that only tourism in India inspires. On the one hand, I gave myself a good whack for being so agreeable, for worrying more about relationship management than what I wanted, which was to see the caves in detail. On the other hand, it had been an exceptionally good tour except for the pace and while I didn’t quite think it was worth the full price I paid for it, I suspected the money would go towards good use. He’d told me all about his family and his sons and his wife and how hard he’d studied to learn the six languages he does tours in. I knew at least that part was true, and if the rest of it was, then I knew he needed the money more than me.

However, just at the moment that I was feeling the most foolish, a second staple of tourism in India occurred. A man came and sat next to me. I had observed him earlier in the journey: he was sitting across the boat with his wife and his teenage son and daughter. He smiled a broad smile as he sat, and I, as wary as ever, returned it slightly less enthusiastically.

“My son…” he began. I waited. I could sense a mental struggle for the words. “Salman Khan? (a famous Indian film star)” He finished hopefully.

I smiled and replied in Hindi, “If you want to speak in Hindi, you can. I’ll understand. What do you want to say?”

He looked both surprised and relieved. “My son,” he said, “doesn’t he look like Salman Khan?” He gestured across the boat where I could see his family looking at him strangely for walking all the way across the boat to talk to the lone white girl. He gestured to his kids, who obediently came over. They sat on either side of me and began to ask me questions: where was I from? Why was I in India? How had I come to speak Hindi? The girl, 17 years old, wanted to know how I liked teaching English; the boy, 21, wanted to tell me I was pretty because I was so fair, wanted to know if I drank or smoked and wanted to compliment my Hindi. Talking to them reminded me of talking to the kids in Kadod and I enjoyed our ferry ride-cum-English lesson. They produced pictures that they had had professionally taken at Chowpatty Beach, another Mumbai landmark, the day before. I laughed as I saw the skinny son making muscles in the surf. When we arrived at the dock at India Gate, they made me take a picture with them and promise to come visit if I made it out to Madhya Pradesh. I said I would.

The whole encounter, so typical of Indian tourists I’ve encountered (minus all the conversation in Hindi, which I wasn’t really capable of the last time I lived here), really lifted my spirits as I headed towards the big outdoor market in Colaba to see if I could find some funky jewelry to bring back for some of my friends in Kadod. It was here that I hit Indian tourism staple number three…

Somewhere between the large book stall where I hungrily indulged in too many book purchases (there being no English language bookstores within four hours of where I live) and heading towards a jewelry stand I remembered glancing at the night before, I made the mistake of making eye contact with a man laden down with drums. Eye contact indicates interest and despite my heated protests in both Hindi and English, this man simply refused to believe that I was not interested in his oh-so-useful wooden drums.

“Madam!” he pleaded in broken English as he followed me. “Price usually 600 – but for you… 450 madam, 450…” I kept walking. He followed.

5 minutes later…

“Okay, madam, okay… special price, just for you. For you, only 300…” I kept walking. He followed.

5 minutes later…

“My children will not eat madam, but you will take it for 200. 200 is good price madam.”

It was no use to explain to him that I had absolutely no use for a wooden drum; that I had no one to give it to, no place to put it, no interest in playing it… all of these things were superfluous. He had decided on selling the drum, and sell it he would. I stopped to browse at a bangle shop, hoping that perhaps they stocked my size. When I emerged, dazzled slightly by so many bright colors at once, I thought briefly as I started walking that I had lost him. That is, until he jumped out at me from behind a bush.

“Okay, madam, okay. You take for 100. Last price madam. Absolute last price.”

We had reached a street crossing and I turned and looked at him seriously. I said in Hindi, “Do you know where the 103 bus picks up?” I had heard that this local bus was a good one from which to see the sights of the city and what I really needed was to sit away from con men and just think while watching pretty things go by.

He looked at me with the characteristic surprise that usually comes when I speak Hindi. “It picks up back there,” he replied simply in Hindi. “Come, I’ll show you.”

On the way, he asked me about my Hindi, I explained that I lived here, and he began, with the added vigor of now being able to speak in a language he spoke fluently, to berate me with stories of his starving children, his poor wife, their hunger, their poverty… With the sun beating down and the sweat rolling off my back and my eyes searching desperately for the bus, it was difficult to listen to what he was saying. When we reached the bus stand, I found myself agreeing to buy a drum. As I got out my wallet and handed him the hundred rupees he’d asked for, I found myself thinking I spend more than this on a daily cup of coffee in the US.

Just as I handed the bill and put out my hand to take the drum, he looked up into my eyes and said meaningfully, “Come ma’am… you must give 150 rupees at least.”

Well, I lost it. I was tired and sweaty and India-weary and so, I tried to take the money back from him as I blubbered in Hindi. I grabbed at it but of course he wouldn’t let go, and at just at that moment, the bus arrived and I ended up just grabbing the drum out of his hands and running to jump on the bus. My haphazard throwing of myself down into a seat made the conductor look at me in pity and he didn’t bother collecting my fair. Meanwhile, the drum sat heavy in my lap, branding me with idiocy for all the world to see. I glowered at it, sinking into my seat and hoping I wouldn’t have to move for some time.

The coup de grace, however, dear reader?

I’d gotten on a bus going in the wrong direction. It was a mere ten minutes before the conductor called last stop and I ended up getting off in the middle of nowhere. Luckily, as a tourist, I had an out. I merely hailed a cab and made them take me to my hotel, where I holed up for the rest of the day, vowing never to venture out into India again.

I’m hoping this next month will whip my flabby endurance back into shape. Amritsar, here I come.

Best,
Cat

P.S. I’ll be updating my blog en route as I can, though I can’t promise the usual every 2-4 days.

Swami-ji Himself

Dear dedicated reader,

It is always refreshing when our few hours outside the school each day lead to new discoveries. Our latest is perhaps our most incredible yet: in an unassuming temple quite near to our home, unbeknownst to us until now, lives a 93 year old guru. We made his acquaintance over the weekend through the family of Mr. Tailor

“Even at 93,” Mr. Tailor’s brother, Jayeshbhai, told us, “his skin is still tight. He does not seem this age. He is traveling on tour in the USA two times, all over the world he travels and all places in India. He is speaking all Indian languages, so many languages.” He listed them off on his fingers, “Marathi, Telegu, Hindi, Gujarati, Kannada, Tamil…all of these he is speaking. And he has the powerful command of English,” he said, waving his hand emphatically, “So he will have no trouble in talking with you.”

We nodded and listened to all this as we walked at a double pace to keep up with Jayesh’s long legs striding purposefully along towards the temple. Weighing probably 115 pounds, Jayeshbhai is easily the tallest person in town, standing at some inches over six feet tall. His long, slightly skeletal fingers are adept at the sewing which is his profession and he seems to do most of the work that his brother arranges. While his English is less confident than his brother’s, it is no less powerful, to use the Indian turn of phrase.

The day before, we had gone to pick up some saris that Melissa had dropped off earlier in the week. Since we now wear the saris daily to teach, it was necessary for her to acquire a few more so that she would have enough variety in her teaching wardrobe to please the finicky staff room. The blouses were unready, but as usual we found ourselves in happy, friendly conversation with Mr. Tailor’s whole family who all work in some capacity in the family business.

As is common practice, they brought up the personal problem of our acne, examining Melissa’s and my faces, still unaccustomed to the heat of the climate.

“Take these pills daily!” The tailor’s father told us in Hindi, brandishing a bottle that he pulled off a top shelf above the sewing machine. “Ayurvedic! They will solve ALL health problems, and clear the skin!”

Jayeshbhai piped up. “You have met my Guru? Swami-ji?” He asked.

We shook our heads.

“You want to meet him?” He asked us in his sleepily excited manner.

“Uh well…” we looked at each other, then shrugged. “Sure, that would be cool.”

“Do you want to go now?” Jayeshbhai pressed, his eyes starting to shed a little of the characteristic sleepiness. “He can cure any body problem – you will ask him about any question of the body and he can cure it. Including,” he indicated our faces, “mosquito bites.”

“Uh…” Melissa and I, simultaneously suppressing a laugh at this common Kadod diagnosis of our acne, stalled. We hesitantly gave our regrets, saying that now was probably not the best time, but perhaps another day? Jayeshbhai suggested the next afternoon at five and was happily satisfied when we agreed.

All of which is a long way of saying that this is how we found ourselves doing double time to keep up with his leggy walk towards a temple devoted to Hanuman that we had previously never seen. The approach to the temple was a dirt path leading its way through an unassuming part of the village. It was a part we had not yet encountered though we were happy to hear the reassuringly familiar cries of “Madam!” and “Teacher!” as we passed the porches and open doors of the neighborhood’s houses.

Once inside the temple, we removed our shoes and were led by Jayesh towards a door in the building which made up the outer wall of the complex. The first sensation I felt upon entering was the twitching of my nostrils in response to the overpowering smell of unwashed hair. I took a moment to recover before my eyes adjusted to the dimmed light and noted an older Indian gentleman with a long beard and high topknot sitting in the lotus position upon a cushioned bed. It was exactly as I would have imagined a guru to be found.

Jayeshbhai went before us into the presence of the guru and put his hands together in the traditional greeting gesture and bowed low, touching his forehead to the guru’s feet. “Swami-ji,” he began, “I have brought the American teachers. They are ones who seek knowledge.”

It was a surprising phrase to hear issue from Jayesh’s mouth and immediately made me question my previous estimation of his English, all the meanwhile turning over the pleasing moniker that I had just been given. “One who seeks knowledge…” I liked the sound of it.

Swami-ji motioned that we should sit and after an embarrassed ‘namaste’ of our own (that did not involve bowing or foot touching), we took a cross legged seat on a tarp on the floor in front of his bed. He asked us the usual regimen of questions: where are you from, what are you doing here, etc. I was grateful that at this moment Melissa took on the larger responsibility for communicating with this man: I, usually impetuously gregarious, for some reason found myself completely tongue-tied. I was also still a little disturbed by the smell of the room, which I was trying desperately to hide until my sensitive nose became accustomed to it. I remembered reading somewhere that your nose can become accustomed to any smell after being continuously exposed to it for three minutes and I was counting the seconds and hoping that it was true.

He and Melissa began to discuss the proper practice of yoga and he offered to let borrow his English language book, the title of which I couldn’t help but notice was “Yoga Sadhana and Magneto Therapy.” Inquiries yielded elaboration: Magneto Therapy is apparently the utilization of the body’s magnetic properties to create harmony within the body and mind. Of course.

Swami-ji elaborated. “You see, the body itself is a magnet,” he said thoughtfully. “The top of the body, or the head, is the North Side. And the bottom of the body, or the feet, is the South side.” I took this new information in skeptically as he continued. “You see, I had a woman once who came to me and said she has spent thousands of dollars on headaches. Her son was in a hostel and during the week, he was fine; but when he came home on the weekends, he was getting too many terrible headaches. The first question that I ask that woman was: in which direction does the boy sleep at night? And she tells me that he sleeps with his head facing North. You see, this will not do, because, as you know about magnets when you have to of the same pole facing each other: they repel! And it creates all sorts of problems for those who sleep and rest in that direction. So I told that woman to get her son to sleep with his head facing South or East. And he did, and he was cured. It’s a very powerful thing, the magnet of the body.”

Swami-ji continued and told us a story about a man who had come to him with recovering from a heart attack. Swami-ji instructed the man to rub an industrial sized magnet on the area just above his heart three times a day for 10 minutes to remagnetize this part of the body and increase its power. The man was fully recovered in no time at all!

I pondered these success stories as a man from the temple handed us a refreshing drink of milk mixed with 32 herbs that are, apparently, potent for the body. As I sipped at it absently, I noted that I share many a Westerner’s general skepticism for alternative therapies, but I couldn’t help but feel that it didn’t seem right to doubt them in the presence of the man who had been practicing them on satisfied patients for many years. I thought about the headaches that I sometimes get at night: was I sleeping in the wrong direction?

My thoughts were interrupted by the finishing up of the conversation between the guru and Melissa on the subject of daily yoga practice. She was thanking him for the book and it seemed that we might leave. The same awkward greeting process was once again gone through as we said our goodbyes. My shy ‘namaste’ didn’t seem to do the encounter justice: I somehow felt that we should back out of the room, heads bowed with our hands clutched in a praying gesture at our chests as a sign of respect for a man who clearly leads a life of contemplation. Jayeshbhai once again touched his head to the guru’s feet, and then we were on our way.

On the way home, Jayeshbhai asked if we wanted to borrow his ‘magneto belt.’

“Uh, come again?” was my reply.

He described it as a belt that fits snugly around his head and is filled with industrial strength magnets. “I wear it for one or two hours a day while I work,” he said confidently.

We said we’d think about it.

After we parted ways with Jayeshbhai, Melissa and I discussed candidly our spiritual encounter. We both agreed that we wanted to read the book and give it a fair trial. I was relieved to see that she felt as conflicted as I did about the power of ‘Magneto Therapy’ and both of us laughed good naturedly at the idea of wearing a ‘magneto belt’ while we went about our daily routine. The idea, along with the whole idea of the magnetized body, seemed too absurd.

However, I also noticed that we both switched the directions we were sleeping in that night…just in case.

Best,
Cat

A "Properly" Indian Classroom

Dear dedicated reader,

As it is the middle of October, I find my mind turning to my compatriots in the US, most of whom are still working on the first sixty days of the school year, the part where you use your exceptional teaching ability to establish the order and expectations and tone of your classroom that will last you the year through and are the foundation for your ability to get things done.

To my own frustration, my development in that department has been a bit delayed, having been thrown in haphazardly with no preparation as to what to expect from the school or students and no orientation about what to teach, not to mention schedule and class changes that went well into our first month here. As a result, it was difficult in those early months to set the appropriate, productive, unchaotic tone. While my novelty got me through the first few weeks, the students, intelligent as they are, have realized my deficiencies (crippling inability to speak the Gujarati, inconvenient aversion to corporal punishment) and are exploiting these mercilessly to thwart my attempts to teach them a language that some of them don’t care to learn.

In theory, my co-teacher Tabussum and I agree that hitting students is wrong (not to mention illegal, although here you wouldn’t know it), and thus I recently proposed a workable class system so we could be a more united, organized front. One of my more proud accomplishments in the past few months, aside from now being able to wrap a sari in under ten minutes, is learning the names of almost all of my 240 students. If anyone of them is misbehaving, their name goes on the board. If they are caught again, they receive a check and must come and stand at the front of the classroom. If they are foolish enough to be fooling around WHILE standing at the front of the room, it’s straight out of the classroom and to the principal’s office. Tabussum agreed to give this system a try.

As is so often the case, the gap between theory and practice remains wide. The first day of our attempt to institute the system, Tabussum arrived at the door of my class bearing a standard 12 in/30 centimeter metal ruler. As she offered no explanation for its presence, I, unaware of its purpose, began to teach my lesson and the predictable amount of side conversations began as well. I turned sharply around and raised my eyebrows into my meanest, sternest teacher face at the offending student.

After a second warning, I was about to put the name of the boy on the board when I heard a distinctive “THWACK” and turned in time to see Tabussum pulling away the metal ruler from the back of the now pained 9^th standard boy. I paused for a moment, unsure if I should continue as she went on to yell at him in Gujarati for misbehaving or stop and watch in the same fascinated manner as the rest of the class. Merely watching made me feel party to this particular method of behavior management, so I uneasily tried to continue as she, hawk-eyed, made the rounds of the benches, raising the ruler in a threatening manner anytime a student dared to even think about talking.

While I normally find our co-teaching arrangement very satisfactory, I must say that at moments like these its deficiencies become apparent. Luckily, Tabussum speaks excellent English – the first co-teacher we had, as nice and welcoming as she was, barely spoke any English at all which made coordination of teaching philosophy (or anything at all) virtually impossible. When Tabussum arrived to replace her, I was happy to learn that we both shared our idealism about what an English class could and should look like and she was pleased to inform me that Melissa’s and my teaching methods matched much more closely what she had been taught in her B.Ed program than any of the teaching that she had observed so far at government schools and she was looking forward to learning a lot more.

Under increasing pressure from the principal, however, to maintain classes that look and sound like properly Indian ones, I fear she is beginning to crack and the ruler may merely be the first indication. She recently disclosed to me that the principal approached her about the noise level coming from our ninth standard all boys class and asked her to control the classroom “properly”. I asked her why the principal did not just approach me himself: the general consensus, it seems, is that since Melissa and I are not from here, we don’t know what is to be expected and therefore can’t really help in bringing it about.

In light of these dismal expectations for my abilities, I wonder to myself how much role I *can* have in solving behavioral issues. After so much experience sorting out these things in the US, I find that my traditional leverage points (my relationship with a student, my knowledge of his/her individual goals, dreams, not to mention my relationship with his/her family and my ability to talk these things through fluently with both parties) are mooted in the face of volume and cultural appropriateness and linguistic ability. The only one remaining is my ability to create engaging, relevant (oh, educational buzzwords!) lessons that create a motivation in the student to want to pay attention.

And so, for now, I guess that’s the route I’ll continue to take.

Best,
Cat

Supposedly Unflappable

Dear dedicated reader,

Whenever I embark on accomplishing something here, I have come to regard unexpected, unanticipated or just plain unwelcome obstacles as merely a matter of course. The seemingly simple matter of photocopying a few pages requires the principal’s signature and the (uncharacteristic) functioning of the photocopier; finding a classroom for before school Spoken English means apparently working around the early morning cleaning schedule of the school peons; getting our modem fixed means waiting days or even (at this point) weeks.

To all of this I am accustomed and my helplessness in the face of these things does wonders for relaxing my attitude about them. I have shelved my American sense of absolute efficiency in favor of an attitude which believes that everything will happen the way it will happen in its own time and I, buffeted in the waves, will merely paddle with the current. In fact, in this respect I believed myself to be unflappable.

Perhaps by karma itself, I find that my hubris has been called out: I must admit that the circumstances I am about to relate have genuinely surprised even me.

Some context: Upcoming is the Diwali vacation, a three week holiday that happens in the middle of the second trimester. It provides a nice ellipsis after the constant pressure of exams and the almost holiday-less teaching schedule of June, July and August. It is akin to the Winter Break of American schools, only it is longer, lasting three weeks instead of one and a half.

Melissa and I, anticipating that this break would be one of our few opportunities to really travel and see the country (as well as fulfill our visa-created obligation to exit the country after 180 days and re-enter again), began planning our break back in the beginning of September. Train schedules were pored over, American friends were coordinated with, hotels were contacted, tickets were bought and the details were finalized. With only ten days to go until our break, our excitement has been building as the final itinerary pieces have fallen into place.

All of this came to a halt the other day when we were summarily informed that the Diwali holiday, scheduled to begin on October 18^th, has been moved to “the 25^th or the 27^th…”

“Which is it?” We asked. The bearer of the news was unsure.

Melissa and I pondered this quietly for a moment. I, usually hesitant to swear, couldn’t help but feel that the phrase, “WTF?” was appropriate and used it quite freely on this occasion talking in the fast, overly exaggerated American accent that I use when I want to make sure that no one around us will understand what I am saying.

“But, how did this happen?” We asked Tabussum, our co-teacher.

“They wanted to make the schedule for the schools the same,” she replied hesitantly, sensing that we were feeling slightly distressed. “So the university schedule and the schools would have the same holiday and then all the students are being on holiday at the same time…”

“Who’s brilliant idea was this?” I asked with a resigned, only semi-sarcastic smile.

“The government of Gujarat,” she explained.

Ah yes, I thought and for a moment I had a brief image in my head of the crowded, paper filled desk of the Gujarat Education Minister – stamps and paper weights to keep documents from flying away under the powerful Indian variety fans (quite unlike our wimpy American window fans). Buried under all of this, hidden away perhaps under the shelved bill to allow students to bring their textbooks into their exams, is the resolution to change the vacations. Cleaning out some papers, he finds it and, after a pause, realizes he should probably take action soon as the holiday is set to begin in a few days. He hands his decision to a peon who is sent to disperse it to all the government school principals.

Perhaps that’s how it really happened; perhaps I’ll never know.

“But, what should we do?” I hear Melissa asking, rousing me from my day-time reverie. She had already arranged her tickets back to the US to see her family during this time.

Sejalben, also in the immediate vicinity in the staffroom, turned in her chair. “You will need to ask the principal,” she told us.

“And I can take your classes,” Tabussum offered helpfully. “He will probably say yes.”

Luckily for us, further obstacle was prevented due to the principal’s subsequent agreement that yes, we could leave a week early. In light of some of the class behavior I’ve been experiencing since classes resumed, I can’t help but feel a little relieved by this. Perhaps a month away from the school will give me some time to think up creative ways to control a room of 65 boys that don’t actually involve the very refined Government school method of beating them into submission…literally.

But, on a final note, seriously: who changes a vacation for an entire state a week beforehand? The whole situation is just so (and I never use this expression frivolously)… Indian.

Best,
Cat

P.S. Here is my itinerary for the (now) month long vacation.

October 18-21: Amritsar

October 22 – 23: Delhi

October 24 – 25: Train ride from Delhi to Bangalore

October 26 – Nov 1: Bangalore

Nov 2 – Nov 14: Nepal

Nov 15: Back to Kadod

The Zoo Revisited

Dear dedicated reader,

Despite the departure of the monsoon rains, our house and the surrounding environs are beginning to resemble a zoo once more. In the absence of the constant, beating rain, the dry ground insects seem to have multiplied and insistently find their way into our house, our furniture, our food and our beds via cracks in the windows, screens, floors, and doors. Even as I write this, I can occasionally feel the tickle of their tiny legs on my neck or on the back of my leg and I frantically try and swat them away before they sink their malicious pincers into my tender skin.

The reduced water level of the Tapi river has also brought new problems. There was a knock on the door yesterday and when I answered, one of the 7^th standard hostel boys said to me calmly, “Snack, teacher. Snack.” I looked around outside as he retreated down the steps, wondering what the snack could possibly be. Perhaps ladoo, an Indian sweet, for the festival?

Then, I spotted it. The reason for the knock.

“You mean SNAKE!” I yelled correctively after him in horror as I watched the long, slithering form writhing in the hand of the snake catcher fearlessly heading for his bike. A crowd of the hostel boys had gathered and they cackled at my obvious discomfort. I hid behind a pillar as the “snack” went by.

Later that evening, I was sitting on the porch reading when I noticed the principal standing in the middle of another group of boys which had formed on the far side of the yard. He motioned from afar for me to come over. I obliged, leaving the relative security of my porch and heading across the school yard. As I got closer, he waved his hands to indicate that I should give the growing crowd a wide berth and join him up on the raised ledge on the edge of the yard. He was peering curiously down into one of the brick basins which encases the palm trees which line the outer boundaries of the school courtyard.

As I hoisted myself up next to him, he said simply, “Come, look there!” and pointed into the basin itself.

As I looked down, I gasped. It was just as I had seen in the movies: a small snack, hissing, gathered in a coil, its hooded head raised straight up in the air.

“A toxic snake,” the principal stated seriously. “It is small, but it is very, very dangerous.”

I took a step back. “It’s a cobra?” I asked, timidly, unable to take my eyes away from the spectacle.

“Yes,” he replied, “it’s a baby.”

“And if it bites?” I asked.

“You must go to the hospital,” he replied. “But you cannot delay, even for 10 minutes. If you delay half an hour, it will be too late, even from a small bite.” I nodded, taking in this tidbit of information.

Another snake handler was summoned and was able to lift the snake out of the basin using a long stick like instrument with a set of moveable pincers on the end that held the snake far away from the body. As he lifted it out, there was a collective gasp from the group of gathered boys and everyone gave an instinctive, synchronized step back. The snake handler, gingerly taking the snake by it’s head, forced it to open it’s mouth and take the end of its tail between its fangs, so that it formed a loop. Like this, he carried it out.

After its departure, as we walked back to the house, I asked the principal if the snake would be killed.

“No,” he said, thoughtfully. “They will take it to the jungle and set it free.” I mad a face. “Far from here,” he added quickly with a smile. Then he continued, slowly and purposefully, “You see, this is why I tell you to close your doors tightly. If you are not careful, it can slither inside and hide in your home. You must be careful.”

It was only today, however, that I learned this lesson in earnest.

This afternoon, Melissa and I were sitting in the main room of our house, lazily using the last day of the Navratri festival to spoil ourselves by watching episode after episode of the TV on DVD that I brought with me to keep us amused. School had been cancelled unbeknownst to us and so with our planning completed it seemed like the time for such an indulgence. Our dinner of parathas and daal had been put on the table in the usual blue lidded containers (all of our food comes from the hostel), but since it was a little early, we had decided to wait and eat it later.

Leaning forward to advance the DVD to the next episode of the show, I noticed with some puzzlement a dark, hairy hand undoing the lid of our dinner containers and reaching in for a parantha. Assuming that someone (perhaps the watchman) had come in the backdoor of the kitchen but unable to see the owner of the hand from my current position, I rose and walked a few steps towards the kitchen to greet them. As I got closer, I couldn’t help but scream.

Sitting on the table, a paratha in each hairy hand, was a huge, dark faced, yellow haired monkey, staring at me with unblinking eyes!

Instinct took over as I screamed “MONKEY!” to alert Melissa as I took to my heels and ran out the front door of the house.

“Oh God!” Melissa shouted and followed me out. I didn’t stop running until I was all the way out in the courtyard. The real guard, alerted by our screams, came rushing over and asked us in Hindi what was wrong. Even the hostel boys who had been placidly been playing volleyball stopped their game to stare at us.

“A monkey…” I managed to say in Hindi, pointing at the house.

“A monkey is inside?” He asked me quizzically.

I nodded frantically. “Please look?” I said pleadingly. He grabbed his long stick and set off for the house. As he got to the gate, he stopped and pointed at the roof of the principal’s house. There was the criminal himself, parathas still in hand, sitting and peacefully nibbling on the edge of one of them while his long, ugly tail hung down over the edge of the roof. I scowled at him. He scowled back.

The guard merely laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

“You should –“ He began.

“Keep our doors closed,” I said, still scowling. “Yes… we should.”

Best,
Cat

The Garba Lesson

Dear dedicated reader,

My head has always known that I am a great dancer.

Unfortunately, it just so happens that my body disagrees. It fumbles and trips and awkwardly moves at untoward times in untoward directions. My body and mind have perpetually fought over this issue: through childhood ballet classes, middle school dances, high school proms, college frat parties and last of all, an ill-fated hip hop class at my fancy Boston gym.

My head sees how beautiful a dancer I could be. My body just has no vision.

Opportunities for dancing here in quiet Kadod (outside of the occasional bizarre yoga class) are few, but when they do come, they are served up as spectacularly as all special events here. The most recent is Navratri, the nine day festival devoted to Mataji that is currently playing havoc on my students’ ability to pay attention in class. The nightly dancing begins at 10 o’clock and routinely goes until one, two or even three o’clock in the morning. My students show up for class cheerful but tired and their sharpness is dulled by the sand in their eyes.

These past few days, there have been many inquiries into whether Ms. Ivins and I will make an appearance at one of these nightly dance extravaganzas.

“Teacher, you play garba?” Hitesh inevitably asked me the other afternoon as I walked in the corridor. For a kid who shows up to my class with no notebook, no pen and no textbook, he speaks a surprising amount of English.

“Uh, maybe?” was my truthful reply.

My mind says yes, but my body, it turns out, says a resounding no. Melissa and I decided that we wanted to venture out to one of these nightly gatherings; Garba is, after all, the traditional dance of Gujarat. Sejalben, the principal’s daughter in law, agreed to give us a short lesson.

“I’ll just teach you the basics and you’ll be ready to go!” She exclaimed happily as her husband Yashpalbhai set up his laptop with appropriate music.

She began to shuffle around the floor of our house, showing us the basic step.

“Left, Left, Right, Right, Turn, Turn, Back, Back!” She repeated happily over and over. I watched dubiously before joining in. It was a simple four steps; it couldn’t be that hard.

One half hour later, Sejalben had me firmly by the shoulders. “You turn THIS way!” She said laughing with frustration. My mind said, “Of course!” My body said “Why is she touching me?”

She let go and I tried it again. My mind zigged with the music, but my body zagged once again.

“This is hopeless,” I said with an apologetic laugh.

“Well…you almost had it,” she said with a smile that showed forgiveness quickly losing patience.

It was with that vote of confidence that I was sent off to play garba for real the next night. It was strange, leaving the school gate in the heart of the night in that way. We walked as far as the temple before we came upon a large gathering of people in the temple courtyard, clustered around a chair upon which had been set a small tray with fire and other offerings for Mataji.

“Oh miss!” Chetan, the daughter of one of the other teacher’s who lives near the school, yelled out to us. We stopped and sheepishly went over, hanging back from the crowd, who were forming a circle. The music began to play.

“Miss, you must play!” She said, as the dance took off. I took note: all the men on one side, all the women on the other. It moved round and round in a neat circle with a variation on that simple four step that Sejalben had showed us the night before. The players came in all shapes and sizes: old women clapped and stepped simply while young teenage girls twirled their hands in the air in time to the four step and tiny small girls in sparkling dresses followed and jumped and clapped. Everyone was synchronized, stepping in time; it was like the Electric Slide minus the open bar (and thus, minus the sloppiness).

“Come, come!” Chetan beckoned.

“I, uh…” I started.

“NO!” My body said, gluing my body to the stone bench where I was perched.

“GO!” Yelled my mind.

I jumped up, shedding my sandals in the process and joining the crowd. Jumping in was like jumping rope: you had to wait for just the right opening, but when it came, I was in and all of a sudden, my body cooperated and I was doing it! I was dancing!

After a few rounds, Chetan looked down at my feet and then up at me while she twirled her arms skillfully in the air.

“Ma’am, you dance well,” She said in Hindi. “You dance like this in the USA?”

I hadn’t realized the amount of concentration that doing that simple four step and clap had been taking until she said this. My mind tried to process the Hindi while maintaining the four step… it was like trying to pat my head, rub my stomach and jump up and down and my feet forgot what they were doing while I tried to formulate a reply. Finally I said, in babbling Hindi while stumbling to keep moving with the circle:

“Chetan, I…I can’t talk and dance!”

And the dance just kept evolving. Just as I’d feel confident that I’d finally gotten it, the girls would say, “Now do this, Miss!” (in Hindi, no less!) and try and get me to swing my arms in a playful pattern the way they were doing or raise my knees or twirl or sing. I’d try for a little until inevitably I’d lose my concentration and fall out of step and sometimes out of the circle altogether. When this happens, they would pull me back in, like a kid who falls off his bike, verbally dust me off and get me going again.

By the end, my body was saying disagreeably to my mind: “Okay, you can have this one. But no more!” My mind was willing to let it rest with that. For now.

Maybe these nine nights will bring about a truce? I can only hope…

Best,
Cat

Lending Library

Dear dedicated reader,

It has been so long since I taught a class that I worry that I have forgotten how. My fingers are itching to hold chalk again, my mind hungers for the split-second decisions you must make at every moment, the awareness of what every child is doing all the time.

Instead, I spend my days designing curriculum, an occupation I find rewarding but easier to do in tandem with teaching. During the last two weeks, the students have been taking their first set of exams, which means no classes (even our Spoken English class has been cancelled so students can prepare). The school is on a rough trimester system here: the students take a formal set of school administered exams at the end of September, January, and then finally their annual exam in March/April. The other teachers must help administer the exams by being proctors. I am excused from this responsibility because of the small matter of not being able to speak Gujarati.

We have not, however, lost all contact with the students during this time. Five or six times a day, I will hear students calling to me from beyond the overgrown barbed wire that separates our house from the school. They wait patiently until I arrive at the open door and when I come out onto the porch, they say simply, “Book?”

I cannot take credit for this ever-growing arrangement: the genesis of the book-lending program that operates out of our guesthouse has its roots in a humble plastic bag. Early in the summer, one of the interns mentioned to one of the boys in her Spoken English Class that we had some English storybooks available in the guesthouse if he wanted to borrow them. Naturally, he came by our house during the school courtyard’s most crowded part of the day and when the other students saw that the American teachers were on the porch, they pushed in to see what was going on. The intern had to resort to smuggling the goods to the boy in a plastic bag or risk being overrun at that particular moment with requests for storybooks.

Over the summer, a few other students came to know of the arrangement. I have christened it such as it has never, even now, enjoyed any formal publicity. They heard from Amin that he had borrowed some books and so they also surreptitiously whispered what they wanted and received their deliveries in similar plastic bags. This book trade continued on a small scale up until the time that the interns left Kadod.

On returning from our Independence Day vacation, perhaps infected with the revolutionary feeling of the holiday itself, Melissa and I decided that we wanted shed the shackles of the furtive plastic bags and go public with the lending library. We began to give the books openly, even bring the entirety of the library (quite extensive at this point) out to the porch so the students could peruse the contents in a leisurely, unhurried way. Picking one book up carefully in their hands, a ninth standard boy would lightly turn the pages and take in the colorful schematic of the illustrations, perhaps putting this down, perhaps examining another, until he had finally made his choice.

The system is simple: we record the name of the book and the name of the student in the notebook that we keep for this purpose and simply check it off when the book has been returned to us. The students are surprisingly punctual: they return the books without fail within two or three days of borrowing them and the book is nearly always in perfect condition.

Slowly, unbeknownst to us clueless American teachers, word of the program has spread from mouth to mouth. It started with siblings of the ninth standard boys: my student Asad has five sisters, one of whom is also my student in 11^th standard, and she came with her friends to borrow some of our more complicated chapter books.

“Do you have any books about Hannah Montana?” She asked me, hopefully. I could only offer a short book-from-movie version of High School Musical: 2.

Soon afterwards, his younger sister showed up with her friends. She was in the seventh standard and her friends were delighted with the beautiful pictures. When the sixth standard girls saw the seventh standard girls with picture books, they soon came calling to me outside the door and soon this spread to even younger ages: fourth, third, and finally even little Anush from the first standard. I was hesitant to give him the book, but it was clear his siblings were going to carry it for him, so I carefully put his name in the record book and asked that it be back in two or three days.

I have no doubt that the popularity of this organically grown program has less to do with our ingenuity and more to do with the utter lack of English language alternatives here in Kadod. I recently discovered the school library, tucked away behind a few classrooms on the far side of the school. A dusty affair, the books are kept in locked glass cabinets and permission to browse can only be taken from the librarian himself, who on an impossibly confusing key ring holds the keys to the various cabinet padlocks.

“I’d like to see in this cabinet, if it’s all right,” I asked him on my first trip. I had spotted a few shelves of English books amongst the endless titles of Gujarati and allowed myself the small hope that perhaps I would not have to import all of my future reading material after all.

He smiled and came over, fumbling with the key ring and looking at the fifty or so keys it contained in a befuddled manner.

“I think I have it here,” he said, more to himself than to me, “wait a minute…”

I did.

He eyed the padlock, then the endless keys on the ring, and announced, “It’s broken. That cabinet can’t be opened.”

I wrinkled my forehead. “It can’t be opened at all?” I looked longingly at the books in English collecting dust behind the glass.

“The key isn’t here,” he said sadly. “And the padlock is broken. What can I do?”

I nodded and smiled, hoping he wouldn’t feel too badly. What could I have possibly expected?

And thus the alternative underground trade in storybooks continues to flourish out of our house.

Best,
Cat