Cuz I am living in an Indian World...

1. Assimilation (and resistance is hardly futile)

Over the last week I've come to realize what an amazing skill assimilation really is. I've been trying to pick up just about anything I can about Indian culture: knowledge, traits, customs, even dress (but my sensibilities won't let me go as far as to let me traipse around in Indian dress quite yet). I'm happy to say that I've picked up quite a bit of intellectual knowledge, but have realized just how difficult it is to put knowledge of social customs into practice. For example, I see the Indian head bobble (a back and forth movement that literally looks like a bobble-head doll) hundreds of times a day, and I'm getting pretty comfortable with understanding the meaning when I see it (usually something along the lines of a noncommittal “okay”), but for the life of me can't pull it off. Every so often I catch myself unconsciously doing it while talking to someone, but it's more of the exploratory communication of a toddler than an actual act of adult communication.

While I'll never truly assimilate into Indian culture, I am picking up on some pretty helpful tools. As I was sitting in the park the other day, a man about my age, clean-cut and clearly upper-class, came up to me and started hitting on me. Without thinking, I pulled this demure move that I sometimes see Indian women doing, a sort of polite shying away. It worked beautifully, and the man seemed unoffended but left promptly. Much easier than wearing a fake wedding ring.

I've also taken to speaking in an accent when I'm trying to communicate, and am eternally grateful that there are no Americans around to hear. Amazing, it works. If I need a rickshaw home, I just copy the Punjabi-English accent, saying something along the lines of a bouncy “thurty-threee.” What seems to be most important is following the tonal pattern that gives this English dialect such a musical tone. I've even picked up a few words of Hindi, although I'm not sure how helpful they are (such as aloo, potato).

I don't have the skillz.

On the other hand, there are some aspects of Indian life that I'm still quite resistant to, and most of them involve basic bodily habits. The toilets at school, for example, are holes in the floor over which you have to squat, and suddenly I'm a toddler, proud of my ability to perform the primary bodily function successfully (and fighting the urge to boastfully tell someone, who will inevitably think I'm crazy). At home, I'm clinging to my toilet paper for dear life, for I'm rather unfond of the alternative, the jet, a kind of sideways bidet. I've already lost one toothbrush by groggily running it under the tap rather than water from the UV/Reverse Osmosis filter. And I still have to consciously remember to keep my mouth (and eyes, generally, which is one hell of an experience) closed in the shower.

I've only been here for about a week, but it's one of those situations in which everything is so different that it becomes difficult to remember living any other way. I've gotten a routine, reached a level of comfort with the city, hell, I even crave Indian food every time I get hungry. One of the most difficult things to get used to is my new status; here, I'm stupid. I'm a child. This really has nothing to do with the way people treat me, because overall I'm treated with a great deal of respect and courtesy. But this is just simply who I am here; suddenly, I'm ignorant of the most basic things, the things that even children know. I don't know the right ways to fulfill my basic needs (and thus often pay double or triple), I'm unable to communicate effectively and know almost nothing of the local language, I'm ignorant of the customs and etiquette of life. I'm stumbling through everything here, and frankly, it's a bit exhausting. But my status comes with the greatest benefits; I exist in this world like a child, and I experience it like a child. Everything is new and interesting; I'm filled with wonder at the mundane, surprise at life here, and the joys and pains of growing up a second time. I get to explore this world of new experience, and my jaded eyes are suddenly fresh and wide.

Where the sidewalk ends.

2. Ramble On

I feel quite a bit like Alexander Supertramp (let's hope this story doesn't end the same way) as I make my way to work in the mornings. I've successfully taken to walking, which is saying something after my first experience doing so. People are still staring at me, but except for the few who are just jerks, most are simply curious. As I continue to walk, I grow more comfortable, in part because I know where I am going but largely because I've learned to simply allow the stares and look elsewhere. I imagine this is how a woman in a sari feels as she walks the streets of America.

Barbers on nearly every street.

Walking to work is almost like an adventure in itself, because I'm never quite sure what I'm going to see. First of all, sidewalks are inconsistent at best, so at any given moment I may be travelling all sorts of terrain, from a dusty footpath, to the edge of the road, to dodging supine beggars, salesmen, and peanut roasters on a crumbling sidewalk. The public arena means something very different here than it does at home, and I never know what personal business I'll find people doing on the streets: fighting, peeing, hanging laundry, grooming (there are outside barbers at many dusty corners). The roads themselves are another story. I'm becoming less surprised to see cows edging onto the streets, horse (or mule)-drawn carts, women riding motorcycles side-saddle, and consistent near-accidents. It seems that Indian drivers are either the best or the worst in the world- the worst because one's car (and person) is nearly always in jeopardy or best because these accidents seem to rarely actually happen.

Away from the traffic, I'm coming to love the feel of Chandigarh. There's something very nice about the fragrant, thick breeze, the hazy sunlight, the continual sounds of life (from the vegetable-cart and milk men to the birds and sounds of traffic). My senses are filled with things that are both unfamilar and pleasant. The Indian aesthetic fills my eyes with the vibrant and interesting, and Indian life makes my brain whirr.  In my idle moments at a park or on the veranda, when my mind stops at the present moment, it feels nice just to be here. It feels different to be alive here, it feels different to breathe.

I'm trying not to get too deep into my schedule of work and home, because I'm afraid the time will pass too quickly.

3. Learning How to Teach

Boys with a pigeon they caught.

Happy Rose Day, momji! It's Valentine's week, and the population is going a bit wild. Valentine's Day in India lasts for a full week, with days such as Slap Day (playful slaps between friends), Rose Day, Chocolate Day, Hug Day, Kiss Day, Propose Day, etc. A few of the eleven-year-old boys bring the permanent teacher and myself roses and other red flowers, smiling in a way that's both shy and proud.

Yesterday, they caught a pigeon sometime in the middle of class, and had that same look on their faces as they approach to show me. Urmil seemed to think that this is an unnoteworthy as a cloud passing the sun, and my gobblety-gook two-cents will probably cause more confusion than good. They don't seem to be harming it (although I later learned that it had made its way into one of their bags for most of the class).

Momji (ma'am-ji) is quickly becoming the word I've heard most in India; it's what the children call us, an ultra-polite version of ma'am. I can't begin to tell you how adorable it is to hear it squeaked out of a tiny pig-tailed girl. The children here are very well trained in manners; I can't go anywhere without hearing “Good Afternoon, ma'am,” or having a chair brought to me, carried by a yard-tall child.

9th Class Girls from the Field Hockey Team.

The kids are getting used to me, although I'm still getting a lot of attention. A few of the High School girls made a point of telling me how sweet they found me, which I considered a great compliment as it seems to be a highly-valued characteristic in Indian women. I've started taking the staff stairwell more often, because when I take the girl's ramp nearly everyone that passes me wants to touch my hand in the local greeting, more like holding hands than a hand-shake. It's quite common to see both women and men holding the hands of people of the same gender, or touching them in some other way, and I'm working on getting used to being touched all the time.

Meanwhile, I'm learning how to teach by trial-and-error, which is both fun and nerve-racking. I've working on telling the difference between miscomprehension and boredom, for it seems that my 9C class understands much more than they're letting on. When I up the level a little bit, they're suddenly more alert, interested, interactive. The theme is shame. Go!

In the catch-up program, the permanent teacher, Sushma, has come back from her marriage leave. She's very ornately dressed, as is customary for a new bride, wearing red and silver (white), many rings, a large golden nose-stud, bangles that go far up her arms, bells on her ankles, and make-up that, in the bright outdoor light, I can see is too light for her skin. Every time I ask about her marriage and husband, she lights up and becomes quite beautiful. The children seem to love her; she's soft spoken and incredibly sweet. It's something else to see her sitting in the dusty playground in her finery.

Plus, she knows a bit of English and lets me know when it's time to transition from written work to games. Finally! The older children know quite a bit more English than I thought as we go through foods, animals, common words, colors, body parts. We play a improvised Simon-says game for vocabulary, an we string together colors, numbers, and objects in basic sentences (there are two yellow bananas). The kids seem pleased by the attention and the mental stimulation. Duck-duck-goose becomes a racing-to-the-fence-and-back game (racing seems to be very popular), and I teach the younger ones patty-cake to ABC's and 123's. I can't help but thinking I should be teaching some college freshman about ethnographic methods instead, but this is fun and I feel as though I'm helping. 

Plus, I get to witness adorable poems such as this one. She was really happy when she remembered the end. 

4. Shanti

In the evening I walk to yoga, which is progressively becoming more difficult. It's still quite different than the yoga I had experienced in America, although some of the positions are the same. The chanted word I had originally thought was “shakti” (energy) is actually “shanti” (peace); this is the shanti path, the yoga of peace and therapy.

We're chanting every class, stopping to feel the vibrations in our body caused by the chanting of “Om.” There are also quite a few practices which involve the breath without any particular posture, and there are some practices that I could have never imagined.

One of my favorites is what I can only equate to a prance, in which we raise our clasped hands above our heads and quickly tip-toe around the room several times. Another is forced laughing, in which we throw back our heads and practically yell “hahaha!” until we're all actually laughing, and oddly enough feeling a bit better.

I think what makes this yoga different for me is the immediacy of it. When I've done yoga in the US, it's usually for some future purpose, for health, beauty, what have you. But this Shanti Yoga forces you into immediacy. The focus is on experiencing the present moment, feeling the effects on the body, feeling the changes of breath, connecting physical and mental forms in a single moment. There are times in our classes when I realize how pleasurable this is and smile, something you would not see me doing in an American yoga class.

Overall, I feel very different physically (and mentally, of course) than I did when I came here. Back home, I was so incredibly out of touch with my body that I assumed that feeling bad was just part of the normal state of being. Here, I'm actually noticing my body and how I'm feeling, and often it feels quite good. I'm finally starting to get over the fatigue of all of the travel and the mental fatigue of the unfamiliar and being out of the loop on life.

It all feels like a grand carousel, I'm spinning around, feeling the ups and the downs, and getting a bit disoriented until I can finally realize that I'm actually in the same place.