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?