Bikaner House

Had a lovely taste of Indian bureaucracy this afternoon. I needed to buy my bus ticket and book a couple nights at the state hotel in Nathdwara, so I took a rickshaw to India Gate, where many of the government offices are. I had made this same mission less than a week ago with Kylie, when I was planning to depart for N. on Sunday, so I already knew the hassle of getting down there and dealing with these jokers.

First I went to the bus ticket office, which is adjacent to Bikaner House--the Delhi headquarters of the Rajasthan Tourism department. The small concrete building was even fuller today than last time. I found my spot in the reservations line and settled in for a long, sweaty wait with everyone else. India seems to have less of a culture of lines than the U.S.; today, every third person first came to the front of the queue to scope out the scene and ask some questions of the cashier, before finding their spot in the back.

About halfway through this experience, a portly albino--wearing brown, flesh-colored makeup on the front of his head--planted himself to my left, at a closed window. Soon he was jamming his hand and slip through the plexi-glass opening, across the divide, towards the cashier helping my line, reservations. When the cashier attended to the albino next, rather than the person whose turn it was, I wasn't surprised. When you deal with a scene like this 40 hrs. a week in an un-airconditioned office, I imagine your sense of propriety adjusts to the strain. I tapped the albino on the shoulder and gave him a questioning look. He responded with a vigorous, smiling monologue that I decided was convincing enough, even though it was in Hindi and totally beyond my comprehension. I shrugged and waggled my head and the man to my right, whose turn it was supposed to be, gave me a reassuring grin.

Around this time, the lady in line behind me became more urgent. A squat yet formidable middle-aged woman, she began gently pushing me forward, demonstrating her conviction that the closer we all were to the window, the better our chances of getting served. I felt her pressure against my back periodically for the rest of the time until I was talking to the cashier.

When I finished with the ticket buying business, I walked over to Bikaner house. Last week, Kylie and I found the large building in the midst of a complete renovation and today the scene was no different. I worked my way around tired workers, bamboo ladders, wet paint and open circuitry to the staircase and second floor. The fun thing about booking a hotel room with the Rajasthan tourism office is that it is a three-stage process. In the outer office, two weary clerks sat behind desks trying to hear above the din of circular saws and yelling from the first floor. Here, I completed stage one: you tell the man where you want to stay, and then he gives you the form on which you write all the information yourself. In stage two, you go to the inner office where a second clerk reads the form you filled out and calls the actual hotel to make the reservation. The progress made in stage two is recorded with an illegible scribble drawn on the form. Finally, in stage three you return to the outer office, give the slip back to the first clerk, and pay him the amount owed.

I was packing up my things, having completed all three stages, when I asked the first clerk about the availability of non-state hotel rooms in Rajasthan. It was impossible to hear over the circular saw--which seemed to have gotten closer during stage two--so I kept raising my voice. Amazingly, every time I increased my volume the circular saw increased its RPMs to drown me out. After a minute of this game, the clerk--who had been leaning closer and closer to me across his desk--sat back again, folded his arms, and said: "I'm sorry, I just can't hear you," with a finality that led me to believe that my question could not be answered at all, at least not today. At which point the circular saw cut out completely, I repeated my question for the fourth time, and the man answered it concisely.

I'm So Adult!

[Well, it's been a while since I've updated here, and I feel a minor obligation to do so—at least for the sake of posterity, in lieu of actual readership. In fact, I wrote a long post around five days ago which I never put up. It was all about the end of regular classes, the beginning of ISP, endings/beginnings generally, and the distant-eyed thinking a time like this encourages. It’s hard to write about these things without being self-indulgent: without using those tired descriptions of emotion; and without pontificating like an early-twenties college student, who’s received too much positive feedback over the years from English teachers. In other words, the trick is to not sound like Jane Eyre. With apologies to Charlotte Bronte, here is my attempt.]

According to a timeline finalized months ago, the first part of our program officially ended with the last day of class on Friday. Here is my epilogue.

During the past two months, my life has felt truly ‘epic.’ The location, design and conditions of the program, explain this feeling easily enough. Yet, besides the obvious (i.e., being in India), there is also the fact of being put together with 16 other students, 16 strangers, who I quickly recognized as the only source of continuity from my life prior to August 29th—not because I knew them specifically, but just because they were U.S. college students. In this city of New Delhi, those three descriptors alone (nationality, age, and occupation) separate our group of 17 from 13 million others.

I’ve written a lot about how good the social thing has been. The group is remarkably compatible and close; even the tensions and personality conflicts are handled graciously. So, I guess it makes sense that, interpersonally, things have continued to grow deeper, more complex, and intense—in different combinations. I might have written this previously, but the group stuff reminds me somewhat of summer camp: in the course of weeks, you move thru stages of relationships that normally take months, or longer. All of which is to make the point that, to me at least, the social aspect of this program has been ‘epic’ in its own right.

The transition from the classes portion of our semester to the ISP period came and went uneventfully. Sunday marked the official start of ISP, and it’s now late Tuesday night. There were some casual goodbyes and half-hearted celebrations towards the end of last week, but mostly people seemed to mark the change privately. I saw a number of goodbyes where I was really struck by the tone; to me, they seemed uninterested and barely felt. Bear in mind, these are the same people whose social interest, whose joy in each other’s company, has sometimes approached mania. So, I was struck. But tonight, in hindsight, it is making more sense to me.

One of the things I see ( and appreciate) in much of the group, is an attitude of self-reliance. I think now, and on the eve of ISP, people are almost totally consumed with what’s ahead. And what’s ahead is even more dramatic than what’s behind. Now, we’re going out alone to some spot in India, to conduct research of our own design, and to manage every aspect of this endeavor—timeline, budget, transportation, lodging, and the research itself. Crikey! If this program weren’t ending when it is, a year from now I’d probably be writing a term paper on the orphanage I started in Varanassi. In fact, I feel very challenged by this all, but in some exciting and pleasant ways.

(sing-song voice, ala Bart Simpson) “… I am so smart! I am so great! I turn adversity into something positive! I’m so adult!…”

Anyway, wrapping up. I’ve been staying at the program center since Sunday afternoon, now that the homestay period is officially over. I’m taking a few days here in Delhi to finish the first stage of my book research, so that I have plenty of context and background material before arriving in Nathadwara. It’s been extremely comfortable, albeit surreal, boarding at the center. The two smaller classrooms, which were used for Hindi sections, are also guestrooms for our program. I’m in one of these and it’s been great. I have tons of space, a big desk, a hot shower, quiet, good light, and my stuff is spread out everywhere. There is wireless internet access here 24/7, and a full-time staff who clean and cook meals for whoever happens to be around. Finally, there is Choti Billi (“little cat”), who is a tiny, black, male kitten, which the center got a few weeks ago. He is terrific, and usually a complete fireball. He’s slept with me for the past two nights, waking every so often to nibble at my side. Right now, he’s asleep on my lap as I type. So, conditions are pretty ideal, and I’ve been able to get a lot done on my book research.

I leave via overnight bus for Nathadwara village in less than two days, and it blows my mind. I’m going to wake up in this remote, holy city in the southern portion of Rajasthan, in the middle of the desert. And I may ask myself, well, how did I get here? And I may ask myself, how do I work this? (But I probably won’t ask myself about houses, wives, or large automobiles, unless something unforeseeable happens).