A Tiny Travel Agents' Office in Mumbai and a Whole Lot of Questioning

Long before I set foot in India back in mid-August, I knew I wanted to go to Rajasthan. Rajasthan is a state north of Maharashtra (the state Mumbai and Pune are in) that is known for its extravagant palaces and temples. Extravagant anything usually isn't my sort of thing, but, after doing a little research, I learned that Rajasthan has some pretty incredible history, is mostly desert, and is home to some of most beautiful and dynamic cities in all of India. I was especially pulled toward Udaipur, which is known as the most romantic city in India, Jodphur, which is known for being predominantly blue in color, and Jaisalmer, which is a mere sixty kilometers from the Pakistan border and is a true desert civilization. Jodhpur and Jaisalmer are less touristy and less well-known than other big cities in Rajasthan, and I'm always interested in traveling off the beaten path.

This is where things got interesting. In the chaos of the last few weeks of the semester, I didn't get much time to actually plan this part of my trip. My vision was doing some sort of backpacking adventure type thing across Rajasthan, which is a whimsical, exciting, and also super unrealistic thing to do if you're a woman traveling alone. I thought that having my Mom with me would help make this less unrealistic (for reference, she's into that sort of thing - she went backpacking in Nepal just last year), but it really didn't. Without a group or a leader, it is really difficult to do stuff like homestays, eat at roadside, thirty-rupee (fifty cents) stands for dinner, and see the real India. Since I had been seeing the real India (or, part of it, anyway) so far during my time here, I thought, in a somewhat elitist way, I now admit, that it would be easy to do this Rajasthan trip in a similar way. I was picturing cute inns with dinner cooked in the wood stove using cow manure as fuel and riding camels out into the desert at sunset, cooking dinner over a roaring fire, and sleeping under the stars.

After spending an entire day in a tiny travel agent's office, it was clear that this wasn't going to be my reality. This particular travel agent was set on, as I interpreted it, keeping the vision of India in the eyes of American tourists as flawless as possible. He wanted us to stay at high-end hotels that didn't let you see much of India at all. Though obviously it wasn't up to him how we planned this trip, it kind of - in a weird, twisted way - scared me into thinking that I didn't know this country at all and that if I was planning to live through this, I better listen to this guy. Just because it's not true, doesn't mean it's not effective. And of course, my Mom was staying on the safe side even though that isn't what she'd normally do either, because she was now in a foreign country with her daughter and a whole lot of responsibility.

Before I knew it, our trip was planned. There wasn't much room for spontaneity. We even had a driver, for crying out loud. I forced the travel agent to leave just one night open in Jaisalmer - with no hotel booked, no nothing, so that I could plan something off the beaten path.

It was a long day of arguing and I had to take responsibility for the fact that had I wanted this trip to be different, it would have had to be a whole different arrangement of truths.

A Weekend in Mumbai

I had been wanting to go to Mumbai since I arrived in India. Mumbai (Bombay) is known across the world for being one of the largest cities on earth (current population: 12.5 million). I had heard so many stories about its sweltering heat, its fast-paced lifestyle, and its overpopulated slums. A couple I had met that took me around Pune a few times and had me over to their apartment for dinner (they always made pav bhaji!) offered to take me to Mumbai (they go every other weekend) and we ended up going the weekend after my semester ended.
We took off for the four hour drive to Mumbai from Pune. The drive was beautiful, but my favorite part was the sound of the horns of trucks - each one makes a whole new musical sound and I think it's hilarious. Here's an example of one of the most utterly ridiculous ones we heard:

We had great discussions about minimum wage in India and specifically Maharashtra, after I asked about the wages of the drivers driving those ridiculous trucks. Apparently truck drivers are paid about 300 rupees a day, which is about five dollars.

When I bought my plane ticket to India back at the beginning of the summer, I purposely only bought a one-way ticket, to see where my experience would take me, and leave a few doors open. I had toyed with the idea of WWOOFing somewhere in India, or traveling around with some Indian friends I had made, but nothing quite worked out. Plus, I had to keep in mind, unfortunately, that although I had become very comfortable in Pune (not to the point of walking home alone at night, but, ya know), it was still India after all and I had to stay safe above all else.

In the end, my Mom ended up coming to visit me from the U.S! She is a child psychiatrist who is trying to get kids off of medication (she's a pretty amazing human) and wanted to come see schools and orphanages in India to see how things work over here.

Anyway, the plan turned out being that I would go to Mumbai for the weekend, meet up with my host mom's 22 year old niece named Shloka, and she would show me around Mumbai. It turned out to be a stellar weekend that I will never forget. I took a boat ride around the Gateway of India,

the Gateway of India

went inside the Taj Hotel (where the infamous terrorist attack happened in 2008), saw some incredible museums, and explored some gorgeous temples.

Shloka and her friends took me to some of their favorite bars and other hangout spots, we went through the most crowded shopping area in all of Mumbai, and we went to cool record stores and ate fantastic food (some of the best I've ever had). It was a glorious weekend and Mumbai will always hold a special place in my heart.

On Monday, I got to see my Momma after four months. I was dying of anticipation as I sat fidgeting in the Mumbai International Airport with Shloka, her brother, and her dad, awaiting my Mom's arrival. When she came tears immediately burst from my eyes and I ran to her to give a big huge bear hug. It was beautiful. I said my goodbyes to Shloka and thanked her family profusely for letting me stay for the weekend.

My Mom and I went to our hotel, had a glorious dinner on the water, and I made a small dent in telling her about my semester. Being reunited with perhaps your favorite person on earth is a beautiful thing.

LADAKH! (part 2)

On the second night in Nubra Valley, we were doing a homestay with a Ladakhi family. We arrived freezing down to our bones and just moving from the slightly warm position my friend and I had finagled ourselves into on the way to keep warm was extraordinarily difficult.

A school for boys at the Hemis Monastery in Ladakh 

It's interesting, because I go to school in one of the coldest places in America; I should be able to handle a place that's considered cold in India. But the stark contrast between Ladakh and Appleton, WI is that there is virtually no heat in Ladakh. None. A few places will have a little heat, but at most it only warms up a few degrees Celsius, and it's only on a few hours a day, even in the nicer hotels. That adds a whole new factor to the equation.

Anyway, we went inside and in our dramatic (well, kind of) and overtired and overemotional state from hiking all day, we decided to sleep in a two-person bed with all three of us, and snuck into another room and took five more blankets we saw stacked there. We were genuinely terrified of the coldness at this point. And we decided to pile nine blankets on top of us. We spent forty-five minutes laughing harder than we ever have, arranging the blankets so that every inch of each of our shivering bodies would be adequately covered. Still, we wondered, seriously, how we were going to make it through the night. Like, we really wondered. It was that cold.

In the "city" of Leh in Ladakh!

When dinner was ready at 9pm, we stumbled into the dining room area and proceeded to eat another one of the best meals of our lives. Egg curry, rice and daal, chapati and aloo gobi - so, SO good.

After dinner, we went outside and I looked up to see one of the most breathtaking images I've ever laid my eyes on - the night sky above the Himalayas. It's something very hard to describe - the beauty of all those millions of stars shining down on you. We laid down on the barren earth and took it all in with all its glory.

The next morning we woke up to find that we had, indeed, survived through the night. We woke to the sound of om being chanted repeatedly on the hillside near the house. Not wanting to interrupt the precious moment of gratitude and awe, we quietly rolled out of bed, wrapped ourselves up in the cocoon of our humongous new yak wool scarves we had bought in Leh for about three hundred rupees each (that's about four dollars), and made our way outside into the cold air for breakfast of Ladakhi bread and butter.

The next day we did our biggest hike of the trip: to Rumbakh, a tiny Himalayan village in the middle of nowhere that is only accessible by hiking. I was pretty worried because I knew I was dehydrated, and I was worried that a big hike would be too much in the freezing cold and in this crazy altitude.

It was hard, for sure. I had trouble breathing at some points and felt light-headed and dizzy a few times. But when that happened, I would simply look around me at the stunning beauty of the mountains I was surrounded by, and trudge on a bit longer.

When we finally arrived, I was exhausted. We got to our homestay house and I realized how incredibly cool this all was - staying in a small Himalayan mountain village that has no road access and a population of, like, thirty people. That's pretty amazing.

Rumbakh - the Himalayan mountain village we did a homestay in 

A weird thing was that the woman we were staying with - Gobi - had a television set. I didn't understand this, but I was pretty used to being floored by most of what I saw at this point in the trip. As she made dinner by setting cow dung patties on fire in her small cast-iron stove with a flat rock on top of it to make the chapati on - we snuggled together under the huge blankets in her kitchen. It felt so good to be a little warm again that I almost started crying of happiness.

Our guide Kruttika came in to make sure we were okay in our homestay house. She sat for a few minutes and talked with us, and I asked if this woman, Gobi, who couldn't speak any English or even Hindi, the Indian national language, had ever been outside of Rumbakh. Kruttika wasn't sure, but she did say that this woman, and the other people of this village and others like it, had practically no form of identification or any kind of "official" existence (whatever that means). That blew my mind; we, with our crazy lives that are so over documented in the U.S., cannot begin to fathom what that would really be like.

Gobi fiddled with the remote for a few minutes, assuming that we would want to watch TV. She came to the only channel in English, and left it on that. You won't believe what it was - of all things, Cupcake Wars. We nearly died of laughter. Here we were, in the Himalayan mountains, so far off the grid and so far from civilization that the woman we were living with had quite possibly never left her village in her entire life, and we were watching Cupcake Wars on TLC. Gobi watched as the foreign people on the screen ran around frantically spewing florescent pink frosting on top of piles and piles of cupcakes, arranged in the shape of a pirate ship. The look on her face was one of awe; her eyes were glued to the screen in a way I had never seen two eyes do before. The stark contrast between that life and this life was almost too much to take in so quickly with no prior warning. It was a crazy scenario, but I'll never forget it as long as I live. 

The next day we hiked back to Leh early in the morning. We spent our last night in a hotel in Leh. Saying goodbye was hard, but I did miss Pune at that point was also excited to get back. 

A woman in Rumbakh getting water from the communal well 

We flew from Ladakh to Delhi, then I took a 24-hour train ride from Delhi to Pune with the guide and one other member of our trip, which I did to save money on another flight, but also because I love trains and was interested to see what one would be like in India. 

It was fascinating. I witnessed with my own eyes people bribing the ticket collectors to let them on the train even though they didn't have tickets. Whole families, after getting passed this stage, would sleep near the bathrooms or in hallways with a single blanket over their heads and bodies. It was insanity. Getting to see such a vast area of India was really cool, too. We went through Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, and much of Maharashtra to get all the way to Pune. 

LADAKH! (part 1)

For Diwali break, which is kind of the equivalent to Christmas/Holiday break in the Western world, we get ten days off from school to travel wherever we so choose. I wanted to go somewhere amazing, since this is really our only time to go wherever we want, that hasn't been scheduled into our semester. I decided to go to Ladakh because I wanted to see a whole new side of India, and I wanted to do something that wouldn't be easy to do by myself if I ever come back (fingers crossed!). Ladakh is an area of Jammu & Kashmir in northern India, right near the China border that is known throughout the country as being one of the most beautiful places on earth. The Himalayas are sprawled within it and its Buddhist culture gives it a different flavor than the rest of India.

Ladakh stole my heart the minute I stepped off the plane. I was in kind of a worried/anxious/generally upset mood on the plane ride and in the airport because I had managed to convince myself that I had Dengue Fever (any minor ache, pain, cough, or sneeze in India triggers some huge frenzy worrying about malaria or Dengue or some other disease) and was worried about my ability to hike in the Himalayan mountains in my condition. But it all went away when I stepped into the crisp, biting air of this new 16,000 foot altitude I would be living in for the next ten days.
But the initial excitement was soon buried under more worry. I was absolutely freezing, my fingers were tingling like crazy because of the medication we were told to take to help our bodies adjust to the altitude, I was concerned about getting dehydrated because I had already run out of all the bottled water I had stashed away from the plane, and the sharp pain in my side that I had been feeling for a few days was coming on stronger.

For the first twenty-four hours, it is required that all new visitors take rest, even very experienced hikers. We had to walk up stairs very, very slowly, and I found that I was tremendously out of breath after climbing all of four stairs. It was pretty scary, honestly.

The first night we had dinner at a totally barren place that had no electricity in the main room for some reason, and so we ate by candlelight. I don't think food had ever brought me so much joy until then - the warm soup and the hot rice and daal was so good compared to my freezing cold and hungry state. Our hotel did not have heat during the night, so my best friend and I snuggled together under our thousand massive blankets and eventually managed to fall asleep.

We visited many monasteries and it was gorgeous and surreal. We met monks, almost fell off a few cliffs in our car that was driven by our crazy driver Hussein, and ate lots of maggi, which is essentially Ladakh's version of Ramen noodles. A few days into the trip, we went over the highest motorable road in the world, at 18,380 feet!

We went to Pangong Lake, 70% of which is in China and 30% of which is in India. We had lunch at one of the small places nestled at Pangong, which seemed to be owned by a mother and her two small children, one of which was a baby strapped to her back while she ran around cooking food. Her son was the sole waiter, and he couldn't have been more than seven years old. Seeing him wash our dishes with his bare hands in ice cold water was a bit much to grapple with, and peering into the part of the small, makeshift restaurant that they called home to see the two small blankets on the floor and not much else was hard to take in. I had seen a lot of heartbreaking scenes like this back in Pune and at our other destinations, but this one was exacerbated by the fact that it was so, so cold outside. It just made the whole situation sting a little more than usual.

There's a line in my journal that kind of sums this feeling up: "the number of lives you could have been born into on this planet really scares me." 

True. 

The whole experience kind of turned my earned environmentalism on its head. For the first time in my life, I saw firsthand how scary the outdoors can be, and how easy it is to forget that nature can be ruthless and harsh and doesn't really care too much. 

We went to Nubra Valley on the sixth day. It was stunningly beautiful and utterly amazing. The military presence was real and a bit intimidating at times. We met two guys from Slovakia who were professional para-gliders, and spend two months in Nubra Valley every year doing it. They were fascinating and the rest of the group had to pull me away by the end of our conversation. 

We also got to go camel riding in Nubra Valley! This was so, so cool partly because camels are freaking awesome but also because they looked so different from the camels I think of in my head. They were super furry and absolutely massive. With the Himalayan mountains as the back drop, it was really quite a sight: 

And one more because I just can't help myself:

Shadowing a SWaCH Waste Picker

 I was extremely excited about shadowing a SWaCH member. I ended up shadowing a husband and wife – both of whom are SWaCH waste-pickers. I shadowed Dilip, the husband, for the first half of the day, and his wife Supriya for the second half of the day. 

SWaCH (Solid Waste Collection and Handling), where I interned during my semester abroad!

Neither of them spoke any English, so I was not able to ask questions or bring up comments or observations until afterward when I went over the experience with my adviser and other SWaCH members. It was an extraordinary experience that I will never forget and it gave me invaluable insight into the power of belonging to a cooperative such as SWaCH.

            Dilip and Supriya are a married couple who have been waste-picking their whole lives. Becoming members of SWaCH changed their lives completely. Dilip was able to get a small truck – a tempo – which gives him enormous capabilities that most waste-pickers only dream of. Dilip and Supriya are wealthy as far as waste-pickers go, and have managed to put their three sons through school and beyond. The oldest son is twenty-two and is studying to be a police officer. They may not be well-off, but they are also not just scraping by day-to-day.

He picked me up in his little blue truck and we were off to his first stop of the day – a Toyota Dealer in Pune. For seven thousand rupees per month, Dilip takes care of all of the waste for this entire operation. I wanted to talk to the manager about his experience working with SWaCH, and he explained, delightedly, that he switched to SWaCH because he knew that they have the capacity to recycle. The previous private company he hired to collect the waste did not necessarily recycle everything, and he felt compelled to move his company towards a greener future. I asked him why he felt so compelled do take this step, and he showed me an email that he had sent out to all of his employees that outlined the Swatch Bharat Abhiyan (Clean India) movement, and how Toyota would be complying with its principles. He wanted to give his company a good name in light of all this, and thought that moving toward a greener waste management process was a good start. I asked him how much and what kinds of waste his dealership produces, and he said that it is mostly organic waste, of which most is food waste – approximately ninety to one hundred kilograms per day. Dry waste accounts for about ten to fifteen kilograms per day.

            After rounding up all this waste, Dilip and I got back into the little blue truck and went to the “sorting shed” – if you can even classify it as that. It was in reality a pile of garbage on the side of a semi-busy road with no privacy and no coverage. The dry waste that he had collected would be sorted through at the end of his work day, and the wet waste would be given to a biogas plant.

            It was at the sorting shed that I met his wife, Supriya, for the first time. She was a ball of beaming energy that was incredibly warm and absolutely delightful from the moment we met. Supriya and I walked to the housing society from which she collects household garbage. She pushed her pushcart with two large garbage bins in it – one for wet waste and one for dry waste – in front of her, and lovingly but firmly held my hand tightly at every street we crossed.

Supriya and her SWaCH waste collection cart, with one bin for wet waste and one bin for dry waste 

            The housing society from which she collected waste had about two hundred stand-alone homes (i.e. not bungalows or apartments) and she collected the garbage from most of them in about ninety minutes, which was very impressive. Most had put their waste out in front of their homes, but some kept it inside. She knew everyone, for the most part, on a first name basis, and greeted everyone with a huge smile.

            Most of the households had segregated their waste to a basic degree, but it was done pretty carelessly most of the time from what I observed. Supriya spent probably an extra half hour or more by the end of the collection segregating wet from dry waste. It was during this that I saw first-hand the enormous importance of segregating household waste; had the people taken that extra half second to carefully segregate their waste at the source – in the kitchen, in the bathroom, and in the yard or garden – Supriya would have saved a lot of time as well as some dignity by not having to sort through other people’s garbage more than was absolutely necessary for her job.

Me, Supriya, Dilip (back right) and a Pune Municipal Council (PMC) worker who came to pick up the day's non-recyclables to bring to the landfill 

            The people who I interacted with that lived in the homes Supriya was collecting from were all very fond of SWaCH and satisfied with their experience thus far. Many were very confused by my presence, of course, and a few were slightly annoyed that I was studying a garbage system that was, according to one man, “a complete mess.” He began genuinely telling me that they – India – should be learning from us, instead of me learning from them. I politely explained that the U.S. has a garbage crisis, too, and that it is simply more hidden than the garbage crisis in India, which is unabashedly out in the open. He wasn’t especially interested in that, though.

            One woman that Supriya collected garbage from was extremely interested in what I was doing and wanted to know all about my project and my observations on the Pune waste system. She gave me lots of TED talks to watch and articles to read and brochures to go through, and by the end Supriya had to tear us apart. I asked her what her experience with SWaCH waste-pickers specifically was and she replied with, “they are our heroes, actually.”

            Supriya did other things besides just collect the wet and dry waste from people’s homes. Some homes – about five or six – had composting facilities outside their home that Supriya turned. A few were vermicomposting units – which is the use of earthworms to convert organic waste into fertilizer – and a few were just regular composting units. She also swept the walkways to some houses and picked up any trash she saw littered outside of the property.

            I was surprised by the ignorance of some people who had well-meaning intentions. The first example of this was a young woman who seemed to be an activist in waste-picker welfare issues. She explained to me that she does not give Supriya plastics because she knows that waste-pickers have to manually go through plastics to sort them into sup-categories. She did not want to make Supriya do this, so she sold her plastic recyclables directly to a scrap dealer. Though her intentions in this act were dutiful and well-intentioned, she missed the point completely that Supriya makes half her income off of selling these plastics and other recyclable material to the scrap dealer. Though she was saving Supriya from manual labor, she failed to understand that this is, alas, how Supriya makes her living – whether this woman wants it to be this way or not. Being properly educated about how SWaCH works and how waste-pickers work is vital, and it was frustrating – yet understandable – that many people had not taken the time to accurately educate themselves.

            When Supriya was done collecting waste from these two hundred homes or so, we made our way back to the “sorting shed” where I had met her earlier. We met up with Dilip, who had already begun the sorting for the day. There was also another married couple who was busy sorting at the same place. The other woman knew some English, and we were able to talk a little bit with this and my limited Marathi.

Supriya began the day’s sorting here. Waste-pickers sort waste into several categories, depending on the content of that day’s trash: plastic, paper/cardboard, cloth, leather, metal, and more. Each of these categories gets further sub-divided according to its recyclability and what kinds of things it will be made into in its next life. Plastic, for example, is divided into three main categories, initially: Main, which consists of all kinds of colored plastic bags; kadkad, which consists of PET bottles, Bisleri and other manufactured drinking bottles, plastic jars, ice creams cups, and other things of this nature; phuga, which consists of dirty/broken plastic bottles, low grade plastic, broken plastic toys, old oil bottles, shampoo bottles, and other things like this.[1] Different piles are made according to this system, and the waste-picker will get different rates for each type of recyclable. A waste picker will store the recyclables in the sorting shed (or wherever she can find room) and bring them to a scrap dealer about once a week.

            I had the opportunity to go to Supriya’s house after the day was over. The slums of Pune are interesting places with a wide variety in terms of living conditions. The small house was home to her, Dilip, their three sons, Supriya’s brother and his family of four, and Supriya’s sister and her family of four. Thirteen people were living in this house, which had a total of three rooms. It was a pretty crazy thing to witness.

            After this we walked back to SWaCH and she dropped me there. It was a truly amazing day that I will never, ever forget, and I am forever grateful for Dilip and Supriya’s kindness and openness.

---

School Time!

Most students on my program take a rickshaw to school. Not me. I am lucky enough to take a school bus – the one Niranjan takes – every morning. We eat our breakfasts – usually a hard-boiled egg or rice – and scamper down the one flight of stairs to the small school bus awaiting our arrival. If we get there a little early –  as we usually do given Sandhya’s punctual manner – Sandhya will feed the stray, three-legged dog named Gini who lives around the apartment buildings a raw egg. Then Gini will continue on her daily activity of chasing cars up and down the road (this is how she became three-legged). We greet the neighbors coming back from their morning walks, or those leaving for work, and then pile into the school bus. There are five of us, not including the driver. Achel, who is about ten or so, her little sister Andwi, who is five; Ved, who is Niranjan’s age  - twelve, and Ved's older brother, Tej, who is fourteen. And me. Together we make a pretty motley crew, but I love it and it brings a big smile to my face every morning. We always laugh at the bus driver's reckless zooming throughout the streets of Pune, honking every two seconds as he gallivants passed cows and stray dogs, motorcycles and eighteen-wheelers, and all the other crazy things you find in the streets of India. 

The bus driver drops me at the corner of the road before driving on to drop the rest of the passengers off. I walk about half a kilometer to school from there, stopping as I do everyday to buy bananas from the "banana lady" as we creatively call her. I buy three bananas for ten rupees - which comes out to about ten cents. Not bad. 

Every parent in Maharashtra has the choice of sending their child/children to a Marathi-medium school or an English-medium school. Many of the parents I have talked to about this, and just from what I know from school etc., is that people are so caught up in the global race, and are so fixated on their children being competitive and strong enough to make it in this new globalized world, that they overwhelmingly and frantically enroll their children in an English-medium school. Knowing English very well is a plus in this world, for better or worse. It's the way the tables have turned in history, and now almost every educated child in India will know at least basic communicative English by the time they are three. 

This is a sad truth in a lot of ways, and although I can say from my place of privilege that I'm glad to be able to go across the world to a foreign country and still get by quite well without knowing a lick of the local language (at the beginning), it's a pretty crazy concept when you think about it. 

No one feels stronger about the whole thing than my host mom, Sandhya. The first time it came up in conversation, a tear came to her eye, literally. She feels so strongly that Niranjan not be put in an English-medium school because she is so proud of her local language, customs, and traditions, and sees that India is rapidly moving away from all of the greatness it has to offer. There is a huge crisis now with young adults moving oversees before or after finishing their education. Westernizing is not the answer, clearly: all of the things that the West has impacted in India have led to the garbage crisis, skyrocketing disease rates, and more medications. But alas. 

Niranjan still learns English in his Marathi-medium school, just not nearly as well. He can't speak a lot of English, which has definitely impacted our relationship, just like it has with Ajie, who can't speak it at all. But I would prefer that to a world with a future where little kids know five languages by the time they're three and a half, for the sole purpose of not "falling behind." Because that whole culture is certainly not the answer - I've had my share of it as well in the U.S.. But, as my host mom, would say, "what to do." 

Gargi!!!

Moving into a completely new apartment building in a new city in a new country can be hard. But I know that one thing that is constant in every single country on earth is that children will always help the situation - somehow. That's a big statement, yes, but it's remarkably true for every country on this earth that I have visited. India is no exception; in fact, it proves the point perhaps most of all. The love I have received from the kids in my building so far is amazing and I am eternally grateful for it. One girl, my next door neighbor named Gargi, who is three and a half, has already had a dramatic impact on my life here. Our door is always open, and people of all ages parade in asking for Sandhya, Niranjan, or Ajie more times than I can count. They offer leftover food, bring gifts for no reason, and just come to talk. It's a really beautiful thing.
Gargi and I became friends instantly. She comes over all the time, and we talk, or draw, or she gives me Marathi lessons (sometimes she teaches me English, because she is also learning that in school. I pretend I only know a little and she has a blast with that :)). Sometimes we play Jenga, or some other game. Connecting with her has added a whole new flavor to this experience and it's going to make it really hard to leave.


we also took some excellent selfies together, obviously. 

The Indian Family, etc.

A famous Indian author came to talk to us today. He was tall and strong and had slick hair and a chiseled face. I was in awe simply being in his presence, and I was in a trance nearly the entire time he spoke to us. He talked about English usage in India, and how five percent of people here speak it as their default language. He told us about his book – the one he would be presenting at the Pune International Literary Festival on Sunday. He then proceeded to talk about his personal life and beliefs a little more, to give context to the subject of his novel. He said, and I quote, “the family as an institution doesn’t work for me. It’s overly romanticized.” Hearing this – after so much talk of the prominence of arranged marriages and the upmost importance of the family in India – was remarkable and at first I couldn’t believe my ears. It was also amazing because I have agreed with that sentiment for a long time but, even in the U.S., it is not very popular. It is often easier for those kinds of sentiments to remain unsaid. He also talked about his experience being gay in India, which was fascinating. 

Upon arriving home, I ran into my ajie ( grandmother) who sits outside everyday from 6pm til 7pm with the other women of her generation in the apartment building. I find this insanely adorable and seeing them there everyday makes me sad for the way our elders are treated back in the U.S. Here, family is sacred, and for young adults, the norms that are expected of them in terms of leaving home are just the opposite as they are in the U.S. If you're not living with your parents by the time you're 27, something is wrong. In the U.S, if you are living at home at the age of 27, something went wrong. Family is so close in India that they call all their male cousins brothers (in addition to their actual brothers) and all their female cousins sisters (in addition to their actual sisters). There is a specific word for every family member imaginable ("mother's brother," for example, is called "mama.") This centralization around the family unit has its downsides for sure - I won't even get into the roles of women in this scenario, but it is a little out of whack, for what I am used to. But ultimately, for what it's worth, family sticks together longer and it means that there close to zero nursing and old age homes in the entire country - a feat that the U.S. is grossly far from. The older generation plays an integral part in everyday life, and to not have them around is literally unfathomable to the younger generations. 

I sat with them for a while, and, since only one could speak decent English, it took a while for them to understand what on earth I was doing here :). 

Another great day, though also a little hard at some moments. All in all, I feel myself moving forward in this India experience in a way I probably wouldn't have predicted, but I don't think I'm going to challenge it :). 

The Ganapati Festival

India became FABULOUS this weekend. The Ganapati Festival just ended, and it was INCREDIBLY AMAZING. I understand this culture in such a deeper way after experiencing it. The Ganapati Festival is a Hindu celebration in honor of Ganesh, the elephant-head god. Ganesh is one of thousands upon thousands of gods in the Hindu religion, each with their own specific specialty. Ganesh is the god of good luck, opportunity, and prosperity. The celebration happens in public and in the home, with colorful and elaborately decorated clay idols of Ganesh in temporary shrines throughout the city. The same thing happens at home.
The idea is that Ganesh has come to visit Hindus for these ten days, and everyone aims eagerly to show their hospitality. People go to loved ones' homes during this festival to see and worship their Ganesh, leave some type of offering, and eat loads of delicious food.
Every family decorates their shrine differently, but they are always beautiful. Some have flashing lights and sweets, pastries, vegetables, fruits, and flowers displayed all around Ganesh. It's really a sight to take in.
We went to so many houses that I cannot even begin to remember how many. It was just a whirlwind of small talk, the most amazing food I've ever eaten, and lots and lots of Ganesh idols. In the end, I felt connected to all the festivities, as well as the religious aspect behind it all, in a really interesting way. I grew up with kind of a weird view of religion - my dad is Jewish but doesn't really practice it, and my mom is Quaker but also doesn't really practice it - but both were present enough in my life to make me thoroughly confused by the time I was seven or eight. But this - this Ganapati Festival - made so much sense to me. I understood why people care so much, and I like what it all stands for. I love the overarching theme of community and hospitality that accompanies it, and I think the sense of neighborly compassion that it instills is vitally important and nourishing to the soul.

Me after performing aarti in front of our Ganesh idol in my host house!

At the end of the festival, it's time for Ganesh to go. Small children will often get teary-eyed at this point, because after these ten days of worshipping, singing, and praying to him, he has become a part of the family. The family sings one last aarti to Ganesh, and then, according to tradition, the whole family walks the Ganesh down to the river and lets him float away. One of my single favorite and also, maybe, most intense, for lack of a better word, moments of India so far was seeing a poor family coming out of the slum area nearby to my apartment building, with the father proudly carrying their small Ganesh idol. The children - all four of them - and the mother followed close behind him. There were hundreds of other families doing this same thing that night - rich, poor, and everything in between. If you are a poor person in India, religion and family is everything. Life is hard, but you make your way through these little moments. The whole thing was so beautiful but also heartbreaking, and I found myself crying a little watching this family singing a sad song while carrying their Ganesh to the river.

Because there are so many industries now in Pune, the rivers have become extremely polluted. It's an issue that even people who couldn't care less about the environment are forced to think about: the water crisis in India is real. Most houses don't have water for at least seven or eight hours of the day. This has caused a backlash in this generations-old tradition of bringing the small Ganesh idols to the river on the tenth day. My host mom, for example, puts her Ganesh idol back in the closet after the festival. I think that is awful, given that she really would prefer to bring it to the river, just as her mother and her mother's mother did with their families. The worst thing is that the families who take this festival the most seriously are usually the poorer ones, because it is a highlight of their year. To tell them - such as the poor family emerging from the slums with their humble Ganesh idol - that they can no longer do that because big business has polluted the rivers too much is simply heartbreaking and honestly quite maddening. Can't we find something else to ban? There's plenty.
It makes me want to fight for a world that is clean enough and healthy enough that rivers can handle some small Ganesh idols placed there by people whose carbon footprint is about as close to zero as they come.

But, I digress.

The Ganapati Festival is a very class-divisive thing. On the last night of the festival, all of the poor people of India crowd the streets - there are literally thousands upon thousands of them. They drink a lot and dance a lot and there is the loudest music I have ever heard in my life blasting from massive speakers. We (the American students) were all warned a thousand times not to go to this part of the festival because it is dangerous. But my friends and I, of course, were curious and our innate sense of adventure was blaring inside of us. We had to go.

The higher class people think of this whole aspect of the festival as dumb and just an excuse to drink and party. They think that the people who attend (mostly 13-25 year old boys) aren't doing it for Ganesh at all, and rather for their own fun. I agree with all of this, but I also see the inherent greatness in it. Poor Indian people work so hard at jobs that are often backbreaking, and they want to let loose once a year. I think it's alright.
So despite the recommendations to do otherwise, we gathered some of our Indian friends and pepper spray and made our way into the madness:


It was insane. I've never seen so many people in my whole life. We had to hold hands the whole way to keep from getting lost (which, really, would have been an absolute nightmare.) But we experienced something that is a once in a lifetime opportunity, and that is what this is all about, right?

"At Least They Knew Their Role"

So much happens in a single week here that it is almost dizzying. Classes have officially started now and I am pretty excited to move into a new phase of life here beyond orientation. I am enjoying learning Marathi far more than I would have guessed, judging from my previous experiences of loathing Spanish class in high school and avoiding dealing with my language requirement for university until I return from India (oops). Marathi is a gorgeous language that has roots in Sanskrit, the oldest language on earth. It makes so much sense compared to English, and part of me wishes the world would adapt to this instead of that. But alas. Besides Marathi I am taking Environmental Studies, which is a class of three people, including the professor. Today we went on a field trip to the Old City of Pune to see how rapid development has affected traditional livelihoods in India, looking at a centuries-old pottery village called Shanivad Wada for an example.

A plan for a metro is underway and within about a year’s time the consortium of villages will be destroyed to make room for it. Ten thousand people will have to be relocated, and it is definite that the government will not compensate them as much as is needed. It was a seemingly picturesque village to stroll through; all the doors were open, with little kids running freely in and out of them, women painting beautiful pottery on rickety front porches, and dogs, cats, and goats roaming wherever they please.

After leaving the village, our professor, Arudhati, told us of how she had grown up in a vadya, or a joint-family home, in Pune. Vadyas are mansion-size homes that house entire extended families in them – as many as one hundred people could be living in a single house. She reminisced about the days of living such a simple life with so many people that she loved around her at all times. Arudhati told us that development has completely eliminated this style of living in India and that she is heart-broken about it. Day by day, as we saw in the Shanivad Wada, the last of these kinds of close-knit communities were being done away with.

The only other classmate in the class and I exchanged somewhat confused looks. Yes, this is true from an environmental perspective, but that is only one of the many important perspectives to look through when assessing development.

We piped up and inquired about the status of women in the days of Arudhati’s childhood compared to today. She answered with something shocking: “at least they knew their role then. No one has any idea of their role or place in society today. That is why there are so many problems. When I was a girl, everyone knew exactly what was expected of them, and they had the older generation to look to for guidance.”

She had a point, kind of, I think. But I can’t say that I agree. On the rickshaw ride home, we had a long discussion about development and what it means in such a rapidly urbanizing and modernizing nation as India.

So that’s Environmental Studies. A battle at times with the annoyingly idealistic visions many people have in the field of ES, but also a passion of mine that I can’t seem to shake.

Then there is Contemporary India, where we discuss modern-day India – its politics, traditions, and all other sorts of matters. Today I brought in an article about the meat ban currently overtaking Maharashtra (the state Pune and Mumbai are in), which is causing problems for Muslims who are supposed to sacrifice an animal in the last week of September for Eid, an Islamic holiday. So it’s a pretty open-ended class that simply allows us to learn about current affairs involving India.

Then there’s my Independent Study. Oh man. It’s an ordeal for sure, but not much has happened yet since we are waiting for our consent forms and IRB proposals to be OK’d by the ACM staff in Chicago. After that, we can begin conducting our interviews and being on our way. (For more info, see previous blog post :)) 

Destination: Garbage Dump

After a life-changing internship this past summer at the Post Landfill Action Network (PLAN) in Dover, New Hampshire, where I was writing a manual for college students to use in order to reduce waste on campuses across the country, I was compelled to assess the waste management system in India for my Independent Study Project (ISP). As I did my preliminary research for this, I learned about the organization SWaCH (Solid Waste Collection and Handling), born out of the organization KKPKP (Kagad Kach Patra Kashtakari Panchayat) (कागद कछ पत्र कष्टकारी पंचायत)

This is a coop of waste-pickers living in Pune. Waste-pickers, or rag-pickers, are usually members of the Dalit caste, also known as the “untouchable” caste. This is the lowest caste, and, because of this alone, they are left with the worst jobs available. Waste-pickers rummage through garbage – in the streets, in landfills, in dumpsters, or anywhere – picking out recyclables (plastic, glass, paper, and anything of any recyclable value) that they can then sell to middle-men to make money. They work a minimum of ten hours a day, often arising before the sun in order to get access to dumping grounds that are locked during the day. They make sixty to one hundred rupees per day, which is the equivalent of one to one and a quarter dollars. Without waste-pickers, India would recycle almost none of its garbage, and the streets would be catastrophically filthier than they already are. Waste-pickers exist in nearly every developing country in the world, and are routinely marginalized, stigmatized, and treated as sub-human. Despite the fact that they offer a priceless service to the community, as well as remove an enormous burden from the backs of governments, waste-picking remains an informal occupation, meaning insecure earnings, no legal protection, no social security, unfair practices by traders, regular harassment, and extreme health ailments.

To give you an idea of their reputation in society, hear this: when I was sleeping over at a friend’s house here in Pune one night, my friend asked her mother how to best dispose of used tampons, because she knows that waste-pickers go through the trash and she did not want to offend or impact the dignity of any of them. Her mother replied with a chuckle and the words “who cares? They’re waste-pickers.”

So it’s a pretty dire situation.

Then there is the fact that ninety – yes, ninety – percent of waste-pickers are women. For most of them, waste-picking is the only source of income for the entire family.  

I want to understand how it is that the only option (and it really is their only option – you can tell because almost anything is better than immersing yourself in other people’s garbage all day long) available to these women (and men) is waste-picking. How can an economy be set up like this?

Anyway, Pune is an incredibly special place to be in terms of waste-picking. It is the only city in the entire world where any sort of organized support is being offered. Usually, waste-pickers are completely on their own, but in Pune there is SWaCH. SWaCH organizes the members – there are about 2300 currently – so that they can do door-to-door collection, have sorting stations, and generally maintain their dignity and self-respect to a higher degree.

Upon arriving in India, I was stunned by the true nature of the garbage crisis. It was so much worse than I even imagined. The garbage is thrown everywhere and anywhere: on the street, in the rivers, in sewers. It's pretty repulsive but people are so used to it here that it has simply become part of the landscape.

The adviser for my independent study project is on the board of SWaCH and is named Aparna. She travels around Pune teaching about the city’s waste management system, what it’s like to be a waste-picker, and how SWaCH is helping. She is an amazing woman, though also quite intimidating. But I’m pretty used to, at this point, being floored by almost every woman I meet in this city.

Yesterday I went to SWaCH to see it and also to meet with my adviser to get the ball rolling on my ISP. Using the directions she had scribbled for me the first time we met, I hopped in a rickshaw and headed for the Kothrud Police Station, the place she told me to use for reference. She said it was 100 meters from the station but I couldn’t make out in which direction, so I tried all of them with no luck. Once people were sufficiently confused by my motives – that’s always the goal! – I went to ask for help in the police station. About fifteen men offered up their knowledge, none of which was particularly helpful, and one man who had very little idea of what I on earth I was talking about even offered to take me there on his motorbike (I politely declined).

I finally found it - in the middle of a garbage dump. Yep, SWaCH is literally located in a dump. There is waste everywhere and the ugly landscape is dotted with the bright colors of saris worn by the women sorting through the mountains of trash. There are goats, cows, chickens, rodents, stray dogs, and cats amidst these heaps. This place is surreal - it's an entire ecosystem supported by the stuff the other half of the city no longer wants around. It smells and I am getting stared at and it is extremely hot and I am questioning my life choices in a big way. “Garbage, Sarah?! Really?!?!”

But I move forward.

Eventually I find Aparna. She is sitting at a desk in a small room. She greets me with a smile but clearly she is very busy. I wait patiently, my eyes darting around the room, taking in all this newness.

By the end of our meeting I have fallen in love with SWaCH. It is caring for women who are some of the most hard-working yet vulnerable citizens in India. It’s inspiring and intense and I feel so out of place yet my heart feels so at home.

(pc: inclusivecities.org)

This is about so much more than garbage. Garbage – trash – waste – in the words of Mira Engler – is “society’s dirty little secret.” Trash says so much about a society, and about the direction the world is going in. It’s about understanding the effects of rapid urbanization and globalization. It's also a crucial aspect to understanding ourselves as human beings. 

I ask if there’s a way for me to spend some time at SWaCH regularly during the week, and see how the whole operation works from the board’s perspective. She asks if I would like to intern – to help her with the plethora of office tasks she has to do. I can’t believe it but I say, elatedly, that I would absolutely love to.

I leave with notebook and pen in hand and excitement coursing through my veins. I wave to a few of the women dropping off huge white bags of, supposedly, sorted garbage. They wave back enthusiastically, staring in awe and curiosity. All I have to offer at that moment is the biggest smile I can muster and a whole-hearted “acha!” (bye!).

And I can’t wait to be back. 

(For more info on SWaCH and KKPKP, check out their website: http://www.swachcoop.com/

For more info on women around the world working in informal employment, check out WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing): http://wiego.org/

Both are great resources to learn more!) 

Meeting Sandhya

Sucheta called me into her office. She read over a piece of paper as I waited eagerly, nearly bursting out of my seat. On the request form for host families I had written “lots of little kids!,” followed by a smiley face thrown in for good measure. 

“Ah, Sandhya,” Sucheta, the head of the ACM program as well as the Marathi language teacher, said, leaning back in her chair in a way that told me she was about to delve into a trying story. “Sandhya’s husband died three years ago. She is still quite heartbroken.”

The happy train moving full speed ahead in my mind came to a screeching halt. “Oh,” was all I could manage.

“She has a twelve year old son. Oh, and she is a great dancer.” Sucheta gave me an encouraging smile.

 That woeful scenario coupled with a brother who was much older than I was expecting caused the excitement I had harbored within me just moments before to begin to ooze out, despite my best efforts to collect it before it had the chance. But I kept a positive outlook and was excited to meet my new family. 

Sandhya picked me up at the hotel that night. I was the last to get picked up by my host family. She came with her son and a tight schedule. “Sarah??”

I quickly stood up, a polite smile spreading across my face. I towered over her, but she had a command of the room unlike anything I’d ever experienced. “Come,” she said.

“I am in a hurry because I must get back to the dance lesson I am teaching,” Sandhya explained, speed-walking so that I had to jog every few steps.

“No problem at all!” I announced, reminding myself internally how super-duper great this all was.

The instant we entered the dance room she began to simultaneously sing and count in Marathi while the five students danced in front of her, perfectly in sync. At the end of the lesson, Sandhya presented me with two paper bracelets, one for myself and one for someone for whom I feel “brotherly love.”

Upon entering her apartment, I formally met her son Niranjan who has the sweetest soul you can imagine, and Sandhya’s mother, Sumati, another beautiful soul but who speaks absolutely no English and had a hard time grasping that I know very, very little Marathi. Sandhya gave me a tour of the apartment, and I was taken aback by a few things. First, have a look at the "Indian-style toilet": 

It was a shock, that's for sure. Plus, see that little turquoise bucket in the corner? Yep, that's what they use for what we use toilet paper for. It's a struggle.

We had the most delicious dinner and I never wanted it to end. There was a stir-fry type thing with okra (or ladyfingers, as they call them) onions, and other vegetables; poli – a type of Indian bread similar to a tortilla; peanut chutney; a yellow curry (amti) with lentils; beat and tomato soup; and steamed white rice (not pictured). It was this first meal with my host family that I fully grasped the extent to which Indians eat with their hands, which I had heard about before my journey. Most Indians eat only with their right hand for the entirety of the meal. 

Eating without utensils was very weird, of course, but I followed the rest of the crew as they poured their curry over their rice, mixed it up vigorously with their fingers on their stainless steel plates, and put it directly into their mouths. I felt pretty stupid to be honest and got the feeling that all three of my new family members must have internally been laughing at me the whole time. Halfway through, though, I felt – how do I say it – closer to my food than I do at home, if that makes sense. I felt its texture with both my hands and my mouth, which we very rarely have the opportunity to do with the food we eat in the U.S, besides snacks, mainly. I felt the chutney’s delicate graininess, the rice’s comforting smoothness, and the firm, slightly prickly edges of the okra. 

I looked over at Sandhya at one point to find her sitting in an entangled yoga-like pose on her seat, mixing her curry and rice together on her plate as she gracefully ate the dinner she had just prepared. A pang of intense respect and admiration for her shot through me in that moment. Little did I know this overwhelming and quite emotional feeling would swiftly intensify as this incredible woman steadily became a defining character in the story of my life.