Celebration

Written on Sept 21, 2012

These past few days have been a series of celebrations for me, spread widely across cultural and religious spectrums. I partook in festivites marking the 50th anniversary of Happy Valley, the first Tibetan settlement in India and the first place the Dalai Lama came to after he escaped Tibet - festivities that included seeing the Dalai Lama himself. I observed Rosh Hashana with my Bridge Year group, I celebrated my 18th Birthday, and we marked the end of our time in Mussoorie with a deliciously home-cooked meal at my Hindi tutor's home.

Before I was told that we would be seeing the Dalai Lama, I knew what most people know about him - that he's an important religious figure and that he lives in exile from his native Tibet. In preparation for meeting him, we watched a movie about his life, called Kunmun, and between the movie and peppering my program director with questions, my knowledge suddenly grew exponentially in the span of two hours. The Dalai Lama is, traditionally, both the religious leader of the dominant sect of Tibetan Buddhism, as well as the political leader of Tibet, itself. (The current Dalai Lama, despite having taken on serious political responsiblity as a teenager, officially stepped down from his political position a few years ago.) Buddhists believe that the Dalai Lama reincarnates, and thus, the one that is alive now, the one that we saw, is the 14th Dalai Lama. He was only around thirteen when China invaded Tibet, at which time he was called on to negotiate with the powerful, worldly Mao Zedong, the Communist leader of China at the time. I won't recap the entire movie or everything that I learned, but the basic point is that China was a lot more powerful than the army-less, pacifist nation of Tibet and, for his own safety, the Dalai Lama had to flee Tibet in 1959, and hasn't been back since. Likewise, not very much progress has been made in terms of solving the Tibet-China problem, and Tibet continues to be a non-autonomous, Chinese-controlled region.

The most interesting thing that struck me while watching the movie was the issue of maintainting a theocracy - which Tibet was at the time of the Chinese invasion - in the modern world. For centuries, the people of Tibet had been entirely isolated from the rest of the world, and were completely satisfied with their system of governence, as well as lovingly devoted to the Dalai Lama. There is no reason why they shouldn't be able to maintain that tradition in the modern world, no reason why their cultural heritage and traditions should be taken from them; but, at the same time, once outside influence seeps in to Tibet and cultural exchange begins, beliefs and values will begin to shift, and there is no guarantee that a theocracy could continue to be representative of the entire population. And if it isn't, then what? How do those who don't identify unwaveringly with Buddhism or with the Dalai Lama come to terms with living in a country that has both those things at its very core?

After watching Kunmun and learning all these things about the Dalai Lama, it was a surreal experience to see him the very next day, listen to him speak, hear him laugh, and have him walk right beside me. It's difficult to comprehend how compassionate and postive he is without hearing him speak. As far as political and religious leaders go (of which he is/has been both), there is certainly no one in this world with such a pure sense of positivity as he. He spoke to us on the topic of compassion, emphasizing that one does not need to follow a religious code or identify with a certain religion in order to be an ethical human being, and that, furthermore, just because someone follows the rules of a religion, they are not a good person, nor are they a good Buddhist/Christian/Muslim/Jew etc unless they are compassionate, ethical people as well. The most endearing part of his presence was the way his demeanor gave the talk a relaxed, intimate atmosphere, as though he were a kind, loveable grandfather, sitting with his beloved grandchildren, telling them stories of the world. He certainly also made a lot of jokes, about himself and about others, heartily laughing all the time his distinct grandfather-ly laugh.

We were also celebrating the 50th anniversary of Happy Valley, a celebration that included a colorful, elaborate, costumed performance of Tibetan "opera." Wearing traditional Tibetan dress, ominous masks and rainbow headresses, the men and women on the stage marched, motioned, stomped and spun to foreboding, drum-laden music. It was like nothing I'd ever seen before, and even more special because of its true authenticity - we were the only foreigners in a massive tent packed with Tibetans of all ages, Tibetans who ran and jumped, bowed and crowded, asked for blessings and gave gifts as the Dalai Lama walked by - and we were lucky enough to be privy to a performance put on by and for these very people in celebration of their heritage and their most prominent member.

On Sunday night, I had the opportunity to celebrate Rosh Hashana in India. Since we were up the mountains, there wasn't another Jew for miles (other than my program director), and so Debi - my program director - and I celebrated together, and decided to share the celebration with the other members of my Bridge Year group as well. Debi put together an explanation of Rosh Hashana, which she read to everyone, after which we lit candles and all partook in Rosh Hashana customs together, eating apples and honey while Debi and I spoke about what Rosh Hashana means to us. It was really nice to share the holiday with the rest of the group, and being put in a situation where I had to explain Rosh Hashana to others actually made it a more reflective and meaningful Rosh Hashana for me, as I found myself expressing why it was important to me and how I am effected by its observence.

Immediately after Rosh Hashana ended, we launched into yet another celebration - my 18th birthday! It was strange to celebrate it away from home, my family and my friends, but my awesome new Bridge Year friends made it a wonderful celebration, full of delicious food, cake, surprises, gifts, cards and music. In addition to many other wonderful things, I am now the proud owner of beautiful, sparkly (glass) bangles (although less than were originally given to me, as it didn't take long before I broke a few, injuring myself in the process), the remaining of which are all currently adorning my arm. Mostly however, it was really nice to have people I've known for only a month - and some for less time than that - come together to celebrate with me, and to create such a wonderful celebration on my behalf.

The last celebration of the week took place at our Hindi tutor's house: At our last class, Yousef invited us to dinner at his home, an invitation that we took advantage of last night. It was a really special invitation to recieve because this obviously is not something he does for his other students, and also, considering the size of our group relative to the size of his home, it was quite an offer. I can say without a doubt that my entire Bridge Year group would agree that Yousef is the most interesting, thoughtful, endearing person we have met so far on this trip. He speaks with such candor and open-mindedness, but also with such conviction in his beliefs. We all sat together cross-legged on the rug-adorned floor of his bed-living-dining room and ate the most delicious meal we have had so far on this trip. I am proud to say that I ate for the first time with no silverware at all, even when we briefly ran out of chapatti (a flat, pita-like bread that is torn and used to scoop up the other food), at which point I followed his lead and simply pinched up my paneer with my fingers, plopping the delicious pieces in to my mouth. Although I can't say that I've mastered the hands-only technique when it comes to a soupier substance such as rice and dal, I'm well on my way! As always, it was really interesting to listen to Yousef speak, particularly about taking on responsibilities as head of the household after his father passed away, finding husbands for his sisters, and about his own arranged marriage, as well. It turns out that Yousef may be able to visit us in Banares later in the year, so we're all really looking forward to that!

And now, post celebration-mania, we're off to Benares, about to delve back in to real India and begin our gap year for real.

(pictures to come once I find a better internet connection)

Religion, Roaming and Rain

The week before last, our Hindi tutor, Mohammed Yousef Ansari, a lifetime Mussoorie resident and a professor at the Woodstock School, offered to take us to his mosque, show us around, and talk to us a little about Islam, as well as specifically about Islam in India. This past Sunday morning, we took him up on that offer and met him in town, in front of our group's favorite chai and sweet shop. From there, he walked with us to his mosque, pointing out his house along the way. A couple days later, at our tutoring session with him, we got to talking about house prices in Mussoorie, and Yousef told us that his home, which from his description seemed to be in total about the size of one of my high school classrooms, would sell for two million rupees, about $40,000. That may not seem like a lot when you compare it to house prices back home, but when you think about the size, the relatively poor upkeep of the surrouding area, and the fact that the average meal price for most Indians is somewhere around a dollar, two million rupees becomes an unbelievably steep price. Yousef told us that even he, on his middle-class salary of around 40,000 rupees a month, or a bit less than $9,000 a year, would never have been able to afford his house if it hadn't become his by inheritence. In a city like Mumbai, he told us, some one living on his salary would probably still be living in a slum. It is unbelievable to me that India, a country with a relatively weak currency, filled with millions of unimaginably poor people, and even more importantly, a middle-class that earns an average amount far below the poverty line in America, would have such an explosively expensive real estate market.

Yousef also explained to us that soon after India gained independence, a law was passed that made it almost impossible to remove a tenent once they have lived in a certain property for more than three years. This law was inacted to protect the almost 99 percent of Indians who didn't own property from the few very wealthy people who did. The law also dictated that rent could only be raised at a rate of 5 percent every so many years. Nowadays, this law means that people often become unable to utilize their own property and, as a result, it is very difficult for Indians to find homeowners willing to rent to them, as they much prefer renting to foreigners who they know will move out in a number of years and won't hold their property hostage for generations. Additionally, since the permitted rent increase doesn't even come close to matching the inflation rate in India, the law also means that in a case like Yousef's, where part of his family home was originally rented out by his grandfather 50 years ago, he now pays many times more in property tax than he recieves in rent. Yousef and his brothers, after marrying and starting families of their own, came to need the entire house, and in order to make use of the property they own, they ended up having to pay bribes to their tenants' lawyers, pay their own lawyers, and finance 80 percent of the purchace price of a new house for their tenants. The total amount of money they spent could have purchased an entire new house for themselves, but without being able to increase their tenants' rent in the old house, they were losing too much money, and thus found themselves stuck in a catch-22.

At the mosque, Yousef sat down with us on the criss-cross of woven mats covering the floor, and began to talk to us about the five pillars of Islam, its different rituals, its holidays and its prayer schedule. Afterwards, he demonstrated for us one set of the traditional prayer positions, beginning standing, going through all the different bowing motions, and ending up on his knees. Even though I had heard many times about the similarities between Islam and Judaism, I found it really interesting to hear about these similarities from Yousef as he told us about what he felt were the basics of Islam: Yousef spoke about how prayer is a time-regulated, more than once a day activity, and about how the daily prayer times change as sunrise and sunset changes. He also spoke about beginning to fast during Ramadan at the age of 13, and about how women, unlike men, are not required to pray at a mosque.

Yousef told us that Islam in India is the world's largest minority, but that it is also India's poorest minority. The majority of the Indian Muslim community works low-paying labor-intensive jobs. He said that he worries about sending his children to Muslim "sunday schools" because it is environments such as those, full of the destitute and the hopeless, that breed extremist thought.

For a brief interlude, before I talk about the Jain temple that Yousef took us to next, here are pictures of the adorable and fascinatingly human-like monkeys that were practically swarming the area outside of the mosque (and that, in general, are constantly roaming the streets of Mussoorie):

The Jain temple, just down the road from Yousef's mosque, with its intricate carvings, clean white exterior, marble floors and gold decoration, clearly serves a much wealthier (and, in fact, much smaller) population than its neighboring mosque. Yousef knew the Jain "priest" well and translated for us as he spoke a little about Jainism. Jainism originated in India and has many similarities to Hinduism, although it has its own gods and holy book. One of Jainism's most significant tenets is non-violence, including against animals, and even insects. While we were at the temple, we witnessed a family come in and complete a Jain prayer ritual, which included offering rice, saffron rice, cardamom, cloves and almonds to the god, an intricate, fully gold buddha-like figure, sitting impressively in an alcove in the wall.

The beautiful domed ceiling of the Jain temple

This past week, unfortunately, did not include any such explorations, but we did fall in to a good routine, a busy, walking-intensive, elevation fluctuating one. I'm sure that I've never walked so much in my life, and certainly not if you factor in the significant portion of our daily trekking that involves near-vertical inclines. At first, having to do these walks at an elevation of more than 7,000 feet was taking its toll on my lungs, and now, well, it still is, but I've come to appreciate how active we are, and how self-sufficient winding up and down mountainsides makes me feel. It's true, I still hate the inclines, but the 2.5 mile walk in to town now feels like a standard stroll, and in fact, is one of my favorite things about about being here - mostly because every single time I walk in to town, despite the fact that it is the same single road-route every time, I can't leave without my camera; there is always something new and interesting to see, always something I missed on a previous walk, always something I'm seeing in a new light, literally and figuratively.

It's been really amazing to have a growing sense of independence here, whether in terms of my language, navigation, or other skills. In terms of language, I'm finding my limited vocabulary and grammar skills slowly combining and allowing me to, if only briefly, express myself in Hindi, rather than English. Just yesterday, I found myself asking the Woodstock School chef, "kya yeh veg hai?", "is this veg (the bizzarely cute word used ubiquitously instead of vegetarian)?" Earlier this week, when I was at the tailor's being measured for my first-ever custom-made kurta (an experience similar to being a little child in a candy shop, in which I got to pick out material from stacks upon stacks of options, sift through millions of types of trim, and dictate how I wanted it all put together), he had me write my name down on his list of measurements and asked me if I could do it in Hindi script. I did, successfully, and he looked down at the paper and asked, "Hannah?"

Another big portion of our stay in Mussoorie is the work we've been doing at the Turner Organic Garden. The walk down to it every afternoon is daunting and I can't say that the time we spend there is among my finest moments, but it is really nice to contribute and be active. Our group tends to split up in to the weed-ers and the machete-ers. I started off weeding, but found that I have a lot more fun hacking down all the overgrowth encroaching on viable, plantable land. On Thursdays, we spend some of the time harvesting, which this past week included uprooting, cutting and cleaning lettuce and bok choy. The biggest accomplishment our group has achieved so far (which I have to give most of the credit for to Danesh and Urmila, our overseers at the garden) was building a mini-greenhouse. It was a pretty basic project, consisting mostly of bamboo, string and special plastic tarp, but it was really nice to be able to see the concrete fruits of our labors, as opposed to the more abstract sense of accomplishment that comes with weeding and hacking.

Ada
Photo cred to Tyler Fair 

Nick
Photo cred to Tyler Fair

Photo cred to Tyler Fair

Walk up from the Turner Garden

Walk down to the Turner Garden

I mentioned earlier this post that my favorite thing about being in Mussoorie is the walk in to town, but I have to qualify that statement and say that it's my favorite thing to do here in Mussoorie. What really touches me as the most magical part of Mussoorie (tied perhaps with the clouds) is the monsoons we've been experiencing recently. When we came, we were told that monsoon season seemed to be coming to a close, and the thunderously loud, ground-shaking thunder we experienced several times was limited to the middle of the night. I kept hoping that I would be able to experience one of Mussoorie's notably intense storms during the day, instead of when I was trying to sleep, and yesterday, struck by our first-ever daytime monsoon, I got my wish. It was right after lunch, and suddenly, Woodstock School became one massive shower, every staircase, ramp and wall turning into raging waterfalls, and the ground metamorphosing into an assembly of overflowing lakes, rivers, and tributaries. Standing in the middle of it all was, by far, one of my favorite moments in Mussoorie so far.

Photo cred to Tyler Fair

Photo cred to Tyler Fair

But for the most important information in my entire post: I'm meeting the Dalai Lama tomorrow! Stay tuned:) 

Life in Mussoorie

Now that we've settled in to a routine in Mussoorie, I'm definitely overdue to describe what we've been doing here. We're staying at the Hanifl Center, the outdoor education center of the Woodstock School, a prestigious international school and one of the best in India. Compared to what the rest of our year will be like, we are practically living in the lap of luxury. The toilets still may not flush, the showers don't completely work, we seem to have a spider problem and the internet is pretty testy, but everything else about this place is wonderful! The dorms are clean, the beds are comfortable, the air is fresh, the weather is cool, and, best of all, the scenery is incredible. The best part of every day is waking up and looking out our dorm room window.

After that consistently breathtaking experience, every morning begins with a hike up the side of the mountain (literally) to the Landour Language School, where we take our Hindi classes. The lessons are intense, interesting and a bit intimidating, but definitely also fun. The language school, which specializes in intensive courses - basically like the Hindi version of ulpan - uses a really unique approach (which I'm still unsure how I feel about). Instead of starting by teaching pronouns and basic verbs, they throw piles of common vocabulary words at you ("common" being things like chhota (small), panni (water), qalam (pen), achchha (good) and so on and so forth), and every class (so far) have introduced a new question word (kya - what, kaisa - what kind, kahan - where, etc) and the means of answering it. So we've spent the past few classes mixing and matching vocabulary words in order to answer questions like "mez par kitab kaisi hai?" (what kind of book is on the table?) with "mez par kali kitab hai" (a black book is on the table), and yet, it wasn't until yesterday's class that I even learned how to say I, you, he or she (and still haven't learned we, they etc), and we still don't really know anything about conjugating verbs. But, then again, although the Hindi we're learning doesn't seem to be focused on realistic conversational ability, it is certainly focuses on practicality. After only two days of Hindi classes, we felt completely comfortable walking through town, with the ability to ask key questions like "what is this?" and "where is ____?" and to order X number of chais or sweets.

Unfortunately, Hindi is like no other language I've ever learned and is like nothing I've ever heard before, so although I'm having a lot of fun picking up new vocabulary and hearing exotic-sounding sentences come out of my mouth, I can already tell that the learning curve will be intimidatingly steep. Still, the easiest and the most fun and beautiful part of Hindi for me is the script. It uses an alphabet just like English does (so not characters like Chinese, thank goodness), which is called Devanagari, but just like the Hebrew or Arabic alphabet, looks absolutely nothing like the Roman letters we know. The letters, however, are beautiful, and fun to write, and deciphering them gives you a feeling of accomplishment unlike saying any spoken sentence.

Hindi is always followed by chai and then the walk back down to the Hanifl Center. The middle of the day usually includes lunch and free time, orientation stuff and/or group activities. Starting this past Thursday, the staple of our afternoons became work at the Turner Organic Garden (although I have to admit that I haven't started working there yet due to a minor case of dehydration). The other option for our afternoons/evenings is walking in to town. Which is amazing. To get to town, you just follow the main road as it winds through the mountains and, eventually, stores begin to pop up alongside the street, and then more stores, and more people, until you reach Mussoorie's colorful, bustling center. 

Mussoorie is like Delhi's infant sister. You see the same colors, clothing, dilapidation and liveliness, the same tiny shops, food stalls, and stray dogs, the same narrow streets, nonexistent sidewalks and crazy drivers, and yet, everything is infinitely more calm. Here, crazy drivers means a single car thundering around a curve with complete disregard for other beings in the road, whereas in Delhi it would probably be ten cars, seven motorcycles, five rickshaws, three trucks, two bikes and various pedestrians all attempting that same maneuver. Here, even when it's bustling and the streets are buzzing with people's energy, you still have space, and fresh, unpolluted, crisp-smelling air to yourself. Here, you have all the time in the world to stop and stare and take in the dazzling surroundings.

Our group spends evenings either with a Hindi tutor, at the Woodstock gym, in town, or just hanging out. Ada and I, while both sick in bed, were the first to venture into the wonderfully ridiculous world of Bollywood, watching movies complete with random dance numbers, murder, corruption and reincarnation. We even discovered our first favorite Bollywood songs/dances, which I'll post here for you to enjoy as well:)  

Until next time,

H

A Journey Between Two Extremes

Written on Sept 2, 2012

The past two days sit in my mind in stark contrast to each other. Yesterday, day two in hot, humid, sweltering Delhi, began with a walking tour of one of Delhi's poorest neighborhoods, an area in which many street kids - children as young as five years old who have run away from home from both near and far - converge. The tour was organized by an organization named Salaam Balak, whose goal is to assist, nurture, educate and provide homes to street kids in Delhi. It was led by a former street kid - a man named Iqbal who, as a five-year old, ran away from home and boarded a train to Delhi in order to escape his parent's abuse, and who, after working some odd jobs and trying to survive on his own found his way to one of Salaam Balak's shelters - all before his seventh birthday. Iqbal - cheerful, optimistic, well-spoken, and full of dreams - asked us all to guess where in India he was from, and after we all threw out the names of the various Indian cities we know, he smiled and told us that even he didn't know the answer to that question.

His tour took us through narrow, damp, fly-filled streets, dotted with hole-in-the-wall barber shops, crumbling buildings, shrines to the Hindu gods, little food vendors, and both the begging and the motionless poor. 

Iqbal then took us to one of Salaam Balak's shelters, a temporary home for boys aged 6-14. The second he brought us into the room in which the boys were gathered, it turned to pandemonium. We were swarmed by the kids, calling out to us "didi, didi!" ("big sister"), reaching out to shake our hands, telling us their names, jumping, climbing, grasping, yelling. They radiated energy, pure and unadulterated, running around the room, bouncing off the walls, meeting each one of us, taking pictures with our cameras and chattering away in Hindi that we couldn't understand. 

In the room, playing with the boys, it would have been impossible to comprehend - and it didn't even really hit me until now - how much life they've lived already. It's not simply that they're poor, that they're living in a shelter, or that they were abused (most likely) - those are problems that we're familiar with in the United States. The thing that is truly impossible to believe is that many of these six-seven-eight year old kids have lived even more life than I have - they've been on their own, traveled across country, lived completely alone, fed themselves, tried to make their own way - and all in a city as congested, hectic and unforgiving as Delhi.

In the afternoon, we walked around Khan Market, what is considered Delhi's upscale shopping area, full of expensive foreign brands, in addition to fancy Indian ones. Even there, despite the extremely apparent difference from the slum-area market - much fewer people, more Western clothing, less trash, better smells - it was still a "marketplace" full of old, crumbling buildings, dirty streets, zig-zags of phone wires, beggers, pollution and a general run-down atmosphere. It was like nothing you would ever expect to see in the nicest neighborhood of a capital city in the United States or Europe. But, from my two days of experience in Delhi, it fit in perfectly there. Delhi, intoxicating, interesting, and overwhelming, is dirty, congested, run-down, a weird mix of sprawling impersonal city and underdeveloped village. It's vast - more vast than you could ever imagine - and filled with more people than you could ever imagine - people that are constantly out and everywhere, walking, driving, biking, working, all going in different directions, all almost colliding, all with nowhere to breathe because even in the open spaces, the air is too dusty (and often smelly) to get a good breath.

Now place that in contrast to the place I am writing from now: on Sunday morning, we took the Shatabdi Express from Delhi to Dehra Dun. The train ride was around six hours and breakfast lasted for at least half, if not more, of the time. Breakfast was a whole affair, with many different courses and rounds of tea periodically being served. Upon arrival in Dehra Dun, we took taxis on an hour ride up through the mountains, the streets gradually narrowing, the turns sharpening, the incline steepening and the cliffs growing. We drove up and up, past signs marking the rising altitude, past monkeys sitting on the side of the road, past little villages full of little school chilren, past lush greenery, all the way until we reached the mist-laced city of Mussoorie.

Mussoorie is where I'll be living for the next three weeks for orientation and intensive Hindi classes - and it is one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. Everywhere you look there is rich green foliage and all surrounding us you can see the verdent mist-shrouded foothills of the Himalayas dotted with little villages and winding roads. The mountainside is unbelievably steep and, looking over the edge of the road, you can see these incredibly deep drops, covered in trees seeming to grow sideways out of the mountain. The most beautiful part of Mussoorie, however, is the mist. Most of the time you can see it moving in wisps right past your face, dancing and swirling as it travels. And boy, does it travel. If you stand, looking out over the mountains you can see the mist moving, rising up like an all-powerful being from the depths of the earth, becoming amorphous, joining with other clouds of mist, shifting, growing, whiting out the sky and the green in a matter of seconds - and then clearing again soon after. At times, when the mist is rising from below, thick and heavy, it feels like you are watching the earth being born, peaks rising out of the thick nothingness of the fog, a wonderous creation emerging out of a steaming pot. 

When you compare this to Delhi, it is difficult to believe that it is even the same country. One is ruled by human needs and the other by the law of nature. One raises your hearbeat, the other calms it. Being able to experience both places in quick succession has been a really amazing lesson in India's diversity and has truly opened my eyes to what India has to offer.