For the curious, here’s a quick outline of what I’ve been up to:

• Mid June – Called it quits at PSI 2 weeks early. I’ve meant to summarize the PSI experience, but there’s so much to it that I don’t think it will happen. Let’s just say that I was glad I did it, but also very glad to have it over. I learned a lot (no such thing as bad experience) but it was often not what I wanted/expected to learn, and it was not always learned in a positive environment/way. Guess that’s life though. I wouldn’t go back and change my decision to join PSI. Big thanks to the team I worked with on CP (Sunil, Sapna, Bimla and Bendari) for the wonderful 6 months I spent with them. I won’t forget it!
• Late June – Jeevan Vidya: Went for a week-long workshop up in Mussoorie on this philosophy called Jeevan Vidya (Hindi for Philosophy of Life) knowing only its name and that it was supposed to be really cool. I finished the extremely intensive week closer than I have ever been before to calling myself a “believer/follower” of any religion/philosophy (but still a way from it), with a whole lot of questions in my mind about life, its purpose, and how to go about this process that we all mostly take for granted, and with a larg group of new friends I had grown very close to over the course of exploring ourselves (nice to have some similarly aged, similarly minded, similarly orientated friends in this country – a first for me so far). I won’t describe “Vidya” here – it takes the full 7 days to get a fair taste of it – but may try to introduce some of the concepts/questions here later. It’s something that I’m planning on exploring more, once I get the time/headspace/environment needed for this kind of thing.
• Early July – kicked around Mussoorie for a few days after the workshop to relax and enjoy the mountains, and then jumped a bus and headed out to Gangotri (the souce of the Ganga – the holy river of India). Hiked out the 19km from the roadhead temple to the glacier that marks the true source, and spent a wonderful day sitting on the glacier contemplating life and trying to absorb everything that has happened lately. The natural beauty of the inner Himalaya (a valley surrounded by snow-capped peaks, sitting on a glacier at 4100m in the monsoon mist) was pretty magical. By the end of the day, I felt like a snow-leopard guarding my den (a rock shelter I found and inhabited). Coming back to civilization was strange…
• July – Friends!! Jamie and Sam landed in Delhi and I spent three amazing weeks with them traveling around northern India. While we spent most of our time in Ladakh (you have to go – though in some ways you really shouldn’t) I toured them through the experience that is Old Delhi, and we also touched the hill resorts of Shimla and Manali. What a world. It was so nice to have some good old friends around (ones you have a history with, and fee completely comfortable with), a nice change after 9 months of solo traveling.
• Early August – Jamie and Sam left me in Ladakh, but I stayed on for a few days to enjoy the region and continue my escape from the Indian monsoon. Met a photographer on a truip to a gorgeous lake in Ladakh and befriended him, so in addition to getting yet another place I can stay in Delhi, I was pushed/drawn to really focus on my budding hobby of photography – with some impressive results (which I will display later – soory, but you have to wait until I have the time/computer to process them). Then it was back to Delhi (and the resulting culture shock) on Aug 2nd.
• Early August, Cont. – Had some time to spare so I decided to go out and visit Varanasi (especially now that I was full of photographic desires). Wandered around the old city (which now replaces Old Delhi as the place where sterotypical “Old India” is best experienced) and then crasehd with a friend out at nearby Sarnath. Going from Tibetan Buddhism in Ladakh to the Tibetan University in Sarnath was a bit strange, but nothing exceptional for me these days.

So now I’m in Sarnath – trying to recover a bit. I’m back to Delhi tomorrow to pick up my family (parents and broher are coming to visit!!!) and then we’re all goign back to Ladakh again – I can’t wait. Two weeks of trekking and enjoying the scenery there will be followed by a week in Dehradun reacquainting them with the city we used to live in, and then they’re back to Canada for work and school. I on the other hand head down around southern India (see previous post) before my visa runs out at the end of Sept. An expiring visa means my time in India is done, and my trip back to Canada starts on Sept. 28th when I fly to Japan. I’m spending 2 weeks there exploring that crazy country with friends before I arrive on the far coast of Canada on Oct. 10th. From there, the idea is to slowly make my way across our wonderful country (something I’ve never done) and catch up with everyone I know who are now scattered everywhere. Current plans suggest I’ll be in Vancouver around Oct 10th, Kelowna Oct 15th, Calgary Oct 20th, Saskatchewan (the only province/territory I’ve never been in) around Oct 24th, GTA around the 28th, Kingston around Nov 1st, Montreal shortly after, and then finally arrive home in the first or second week of November. This is your advance warning – if you want to see me, all you need to do is let me nkow where you are, and what your availablility is like around the time I’m planning on passing through your neck-of-the-woods (and with a trip like this, there are very few places in Canada that I’ll be too far from to find you, so I want to hear from everyone!) and I’ll make it happen.

Alright, my time quota has run out, so that’s it for now I guess. If you want to get in touch with me for the next 3 months, email is a much better bet. I should even be able to tell you more about what’s happened/going to happen as the personal connection makes it much easier to write stuff. In the meantime, hope everything is going well for all, and I’ll try to update this when possible (unlikely, but who knows…). Til then, keep on living and make the most out of it!

Given that every single other habited continent has multiple countries on it, it seems odd that this one has only one (true, technically there are 4 others, but they don’t have the size or diversity, and are all are on the edge of the sub-continent, so I think I can justifiably say that they are insignificant in comparison – the sub-continent is called India after all…). Despite the range of environmental diversity, the social and cultural diversity of the country is much larger – hundreds of languages, thousands of cultures and millions of different lifestyles. Given all this, and the way chaos reigns here, it’s absolutely astounding that this country manages to stay together, most everyone would agree that in many ways it makes more sense to have several separate countries.

If India was ever going to be majorly split (ignoring all the constant border spats with Pakistan and China – as sensitive as the issues are, the areas in question are relatively small), it would likely split in half, north and south. The north you have the mountains and great plains, where the ginormous population mostly speaks (or at least understands) Hindi, where the people are mostly Hindu – but with major Muslim influences. Compare this with the southern part, lush tropical coastlines and dry inland plateaus, inhabited by people who speak languages completely unintelligible to a Hindi speaker (which is why English is the only truly national language of the country, it’s the only way South Indians and North Indians can communicate) and whose culture is still Hindu, but different than in the north, much more influenced by Christianity than Islam. There isn’t really a sharp line separating these two regions, over the millennia there has been substantial intermixing, but somewhere in the 2200km between Delhi and Chennai (likely around the MP/Maharastra border), you start to feel like you’ve entered another world.

However, my impressions of “India” are almost entirely based on North India. Between the 11 months I lived in this country 10 years ago and the 9 months I’ve been here so far this time, I’ve spent a total of 3 weeks in the south. To make up for this, ever since arriving in October I’ve been wanting to go back and explore around more, but given the size of it (distances between places, and size of area to explore) and climate considerations (it’s too hot most of the year, and also wet for a significant portion), I haven’t done it yet. However with work commitments now done, I’ve got 3.5 months before I leave to explore, and while the first part of that is still likely to be hot and wet, I figure that by the time my parents leave near the end of August, it’ll be pleasant enough to make the trip down. Plus, if I leave it any later, it’s just not going to happen due to lack of time, so it’s September or bust.

So I once again pulled out my trusty trip-planner (AKA “the book”, Lonely Planet) and read through all the parts on Southern India. Some places from our trip 10 years ago seemed like they’d be worth repeating (Ajanta, Ellora, Kerala) but there were quite a few places I’ve never been to that looked appealing. Overall, this trip is going to cover a lot more new ground than my December adventure in Western India, and I’m excited for that. given time constraints and the amount of distance to cover, this one looks like it will be a little more rushed than the previous one, but on reflection, I think my December trip was a little slow at times, and there were certainly instances I was sitting/wandering around in places because I’d planned too much time there, and would have been just as happy moving on sooner (if it hadn’t been for my train reservations, I would have).

I think the best (and neatest) way to describe the trip is to show it to you – give you a sense of just how far I’ll be going, and the number/diversity of places I’ll be stopping through. A picture (map) is worth a thousand words, so here it is, and for those who want to know more, the words follow (actually less than a thousand for a change!)

So here’s the plan (in words):

Madhya Pradesh:

• Aug 26 – Gwalior: A big imposing fort provides the main attraction here
• Aug 27 – Khajuraho: Takes all morning to get here, but once you arrive Khajuraho gives you a taste of some of India’s most famous temples. Conservative India sure didn’t carve these ‘erotic’ buildings
• Aug 28 – Khajuraho: Take in the rest of Khajuraho (too much for one day) and then head back to base camp at Jhansi
• Aug 29 – Orcha: A cluster of spectacular abandoned palaces just outside of Jhansi that are a must see for any Indian tourist
• Aug 30 – Bhopal: Spend the morning getting there, and then the afternoon exploring the city (infamous for the cyanide disaster back in the 80’s)
• Aug 31 – Sanchi: Some of the first (and best) Buddist stupas in India are located just outside Bhopal
• Sept 01 – Bhimbeteka: Ancient caves filled with paintings from 12,000 years ago, then on to Indore
• Sept 02 – Omkareshwar: A spiritual island in the Narmanda River, supposed to be a lively place
• Sept 03 – Mandu: Deserted remains of an Afghan-style citadel perched out on a remote plateau – “enchanting…”
• Sept 04 – Mandu: More time to appreciate Mandu at a relaxed pace, wander around the ruins
• Sept 05 – Indore: Back to Indore to catch a train on to Mumbai

Maharashtra:

• Sept 06 – Mumbai: I’ve heard so much about it but never been, so I figured I couldn’t leave India this time without seeing what the ruckus is all about
• Sept 07 – Mumbai: Any city this big needs more than one day to appreciate
• Sept 08 – Ajanta: Stunning murals painted in caves carved out of a sheer cliff by Buddist monks using spoons (no joke)
• Sept 09 – Ellora: 34 temples cut out of a rocky hillside – a true stunner
• Sept 10 – Dhalatabad: The fort to end all forts, built by a former Sultan of Northern India who moved his capital (and force-marched all its inhabitants) from Delhi to this hilltop fortress 1100km away

Andra Pradesh:

• Sept 11 – Hyderabad: Though a big city, there’s a lot to see and apparently lots of charm in this southern metropolis
• Sept 12 – Golconda: The ruins of a huge fortress just outside Hyderabad

Karnataka:

• Sept 13 – Hampi: The ruined capital of the largest Hindu empire in all of Indian history, now inhabited only by boulders
• Sept 14 – Hampi: “The Book” says you could spend a week in Hampi, so I figured I’d need more than one day
• Sept 15 – Bangalore: I’ve heard a lot about ‘Silicon Valley East’, now I want to see what it’s all about
• Sept 16 – Bangalore: A city with such prosperity promises to have a huge diversity – what I like to explore most
• Sept 17 – Mysore: Colourful, lively Mysore, with a palace full of wonders (and luckily an awesome light show on Sunday nights)
• Sept 18 – Mysore: Some time to relax and soak up the rest of Mysore
• Sept 19 – Halebid & Belur: Half-finished remains of some spectacular, completely unique temples
• Sept 20 – Mangalore: Train trip down through the hills to the coast, and some time to explore this different world

Kerala:

• Sept 21 – Cochin: The hub of Kerala, lots of sights, events, and basically fun
• Sept 22 – Quilon: Starting point for exploring the backwater canals that crisscross rural Kerala, and exploring the unique lifestyles found here
• Sept 23 – Varkala: A day on the beach, supposed to be a little less touristy with better scenery around
• Sept 24 – Padmanabhupuram Palace: A fabulous teak palace displaying the pinnacle of Southern luxury

Tamil Nadu:

• Sept 25 – Kanniyakumari: Last point before Antarctica and the meeting point of 3 seas, there’s apparently some neat temples too
• Sept 26 – Trichy: Hustling city with flare, but the highlights are two magnificent temples (on perched on a sheer pinnacle of rock)
• Sept 27 – Pondicherry: As continental as you get in India, this former French colony provides a unique experience
• Sept 28 – Delhi: Parachute (hopefully not literally, but I’m not sure I trust discount airlines in this country…) into Delhi from Chennai and soak up my last taste of India in this city that constantly astounds me

34 days, 8 states, 5450km (straight line, it’s going to end up much more than that) and more diversity than you can possibly imagine all combine to suggest that this is going to be quite the adventure – but that’s what I’m looking for!

While on the language subject, I’ve always been amazed at home people here intermix Hindi and English when speaking here (often several times in a sentence) despite the fact that the languages have completely different grammar/structure and are almost completely unrelated. However, the longer I stay here, the simpler it seems, and it’s now gotten to the point where I find myself doing it. Almost anything you want to say can be broken up into bits comprising of nouns (and their associated adjectives) and verbs (along with the grammatical glue – conjunctions etc.). It’s hard to switch languages within fragments, but you can easily switch languages between fragments. The resulting mishmash (often termed “Hinglish”) ends up sounding quite funny, but it’s remarkably easy to process if you can understand the two languages. It’s typical Indian for you, do whatever works best (easiest), most often resulting in something so chaotic that it’s somehow ordered…

To follow my own philosophy of learning by example, I’m giving you a selection of my favorite words/phrases so you too can hopefully appreciate the utility of Hindi and the hilarity of Hinglish. I’ve tried to explain them, but if they don’t seem so special to you, then I guess you just need to come to India – context & nuance are essential here…

• “chelaega” & “ho jaiaega” – Very similar in meaning, these two phrases (roughly meaning “it’ll work”) are absolutely fundamental in this country where everything is uncertain and being pieced together at the last minute from whatever resources are lying around. Yes you can use the English, but it just doesn’t quite convey the full meaning of the Indian context like the Hindi words do.
• “patta nahi” – One of the first phrases I learned after starting work with PSI, it’s saved me in many tricky situations throughout my work so far. For our project (and work in PSI – and even India – in general), knowing how to say “I don’t have a clue” is just plain critical. In most situations, the phrase also implies that you’re not willing/able to do anything about the lack of information, making it even more useful. Oh India, if it’s not your problem directly, you don’t worry about it.
• “bahut tasty hai” – I’m not sure if the problem is that there just isn’t any word for “tasty” in Hindi (I don’t know of one), but it seems that this word has become part of the core vocabulary of Hindi speakers across the country. The mother of the PSI Guesthouse caretaker (who’s been here helping out in the kitchen lately because there’s a big group of trainees in the hostel) use the word tonight, and I’m sure if you asked her, she couldn’t give you 5 more words of English (actually, she’d likely think “tasty” was a Hindi word…). Even in the mountains of Garwhal, in every little tiny village, every man, woman and child seems to know (and use) “tasty”. I guess if you consider the typical Indian diet it’s not all that surprising – pretty much everything here is “tasty”, but the English syllables stick out like a sore-thumb in Hindi and so I still get a kick out of it whenever I hear it in Hindi conversation.
• “halfsuit” – No it’s not something you’d wear to a formal party (though even if it was formal attire, I’d think you’d want to wear more than half a suit). “Halfsuit” is in fact something very different – it refers to small canals that branch of of major ones – otherwise known in proper English as “offshoot”. However, somewhere in the transfer to India/Indians, the pronunciation got garbled so everyone in the irrigation department is now running around thinking they’re being sophisticated using English (though the villagers – who also use the word – seem to think it’s a home-grown Garwhali word) when in fact the only potentially sophisticated thing is what they’re mistakingly referring to – suits and not canals. It took 5 minutes of arguing (and explaining what a “halfsuit” really is) to convince Sapna that the word was really “offshoot”.

I’m sure there are many, many more examples that I’ve heard endless times (and am just forgetting right now) that are equally funny/interesting, but for now that’s all that comes to mind. If I remember more later, I’ll add them to the list.

In the mean time:

“Bye-bye Hindi,
Bye-bye English,
Become Indian,
Bring on the Hinglish!”

Namashkar!

The worst part of the heat is that there is no escaping it, it is everywhere, all the time (nights are worst, I can’t sleep if it’s hot). Despite all the advances in technology and affluence, air-conditioning is still a rare thing here, there’s no air-conditioner at the office or the guesthouse, and even air-conditioned shops/public places are few and far between. The second option – fans – are abundant, but they don’t cool you off, they just create a breeze which changes the situation from hot to tolerable. In fact, if you consider them thermodynamically, they actually make it hotter by losing electricity to heat in the process of turning the blades – but we won’t go there. Regardless, the second the power dies (a rare, but occurring phenomenon), you instantly feel your temperature starting to rise as the breeze disappears. Additionally, the constant whirring of all the fans is annoying. I like my peace and quiet, and in the omnipresent cacophony that is India, the one retreat I had – my room – has now been invaded by the constant whirring of the fan. At least it doesn’t click and wobble like the one above my bed did back in our old house in Dehradun 10 years ago – that damn fan gave me constant nightmares to the point I would sleep teetering on the edge of bed for fear it would fall on me in the night. I’ve since learned that those fears may have at least partially due to the malaria medication we were taking (good old Larium and the hallucinations it induces), but regardless, nights weren’t fun.

To make matters worse, the fallback cooling off plan of bathing just doesn’t work either these days, and swimming is just impossible as the number of water-bodies nearby – even indoors – can be counted on one hand, and that’s ignoring the fact that in all of them, you’d likely die instantly due to some chemical, bacteria, animal or combination thereof in the water. Baths and showers on the other hand are out because the water that comes out of the cold water tap these days is usually above room temperature (already hot), and hotter than most “hot water” you get in this country in the winter. Indian plumbing relies on gravity to produce water pressure in the taps – necessary when the power goes out – and so the water in every house/building comes from huge, black plastic storage tanks located on the roof – where they get exposed to direct sun and 40˚C temperatures for about 6 hours a day. To be honest, what surprises me most is the fact that the tanks don’t melt – that’s how hot it is. Add in the whole inconvenience of having to use a bucket to pour water over yourself, and in the end, bathing just isn’t a good option for cooling off. However, since you sweat buckets every day in the heat, the (fleeting) feeling of cleanliness that comes after bathing makes the whole process worth the annoyance/effort. I knew when I left Mayali that I would miss being able to bathe (basically shower) down at the spring with its cool water, but now that I’m back here in Dehradun, I’ve realized I had completely underestimated how much I’d miss it. Oh to be back in the mountains…

However, having complained about the heat so much, I’ve got to say that it hasn’t been as bad as I had initially expected. Life is possible here in the heat, and not just that – it’s actually possible to do things. Lately I’ve been tripping downtown in the afternoons (just after the peak-heat of midday) and walking all around the city (going to the travel agent, internet cafe, shopping for sunglasses etc.) and the heat hasn’t been a big issue. Yesterday when I went past the Clock Tower, I noticed a big sign (put up by the Uttaranchal Pollution Control Board) that informed me that the current temperature was 38.5˚C (as well as SO2, NO2 and suspended particle levels, but I couldn’t read them as the glare from the sun was too bright), and I remember thinking to myself, “That can’t be right, it’s hot but not that bad” before trotting off on my way. On second thought though, I think the sign was right, which means my acclimatization strategy has worked like a charm. Plus, I’ve come to realize that dry heat and humid heat are very, very different (these days here in Dehradun it feels a lot nicer than it did in Ottawa last summer when the temperature was only 32˚ – in 95% humidity). At this rate I’m starting to think I have a chance of surviving my time in Delhi (the hottest furnace in the country after Rajasthan) in July when I go to fetch Sam and Jamie.

One funny little tidbit worth mentioning is the cooling-off technique that’s allowed life to be plesant. Turns out my body’s circulation system is a little garbled, and instead of using normal places like ears and forehead as radiators, all the hot blood in my body falls directly to my feet. It’s great for Canadian winters (as a kid I’d happly play in the snow barefoot), but in the heat, it’s plain hell. Thankfully, the solution isn’t difficult – a big bucket of (ideally cold) water. I learned this trick on my previous trip to India 10 years ago, and it’s saved me many times (both here and occasionally back in Canada too). Before going to work in the morning, upon arriving back at the guesthouse for lunch, after coming home at the end of the day and before going to bed at night, I head straight to the bathroom and dunk my feet. Sticking the first one in feels good, but the second feels like pure heaven (once the first goes in and cools off, the temperature difference between the two feet jumps making the hot one feel hotter, so when it goes into the water it feels like I’m putting it into a freezer rather than a bucket of warm water). Feet wet, I proceed to flop on my bed and lye with my feet directly under the fan and enjoy the further cool bliss that comes as the water evaporates. Before I know it, my feet are hot again, but the short releif does the trick and keeps me going until the next time I get near the bathroom. It’s made me think about ways I can spend more time in water – to the point where I’ve been contemplating whether it would be possible to sleep submerged in a pool on a SCUBA-like aparatus, or how to make an aircon blanket (there’s electric blankets to keep you warm, why not something similar to keep you cool?). Maybe it’s the heat getting to me, maybe it’s the engineering mind I’ve got, maybe it’s my mind trying to find anything to think about to escape the current doldrums that I’m in, whatever the reason, the ideas seem interesting…

As for the typical Indian coping strategy, they just wake up at 4:30am, work til noon and then go sleep under a tree for 3 hours before finishing the day from 3 to 10pm. And when it really gets hot, they go grab a cup of (hot) chai! Apparently the logic goes, “only diamond cuts diamond” (ie. heat cuts heat), and so if you want to feel cool, you should make yourself hotter first so you can then cool off. As crazy as it seems, the logic works in some bizzare way, and so I’ve been enjoying sweet, wonderful “ garum chai” all though past week.

So that’s the state of things – a lot hotter than I’d like, but also a lot better than I expected. I’m certainly looking forward to going up to Mussoorie at the end of next week – and it’s not just for a change of activities. Until then, I’ll be sweating it out in this sauna they call India.

Future plans are up in the air, I’ll be here in Dehradun until at least June 15th working with PSI (maybe up until June 30th), but am hoping to go to Mussoorie for a cool workshop on June 18-25, and then maybe go explore the mountains (I’ve spent nearly 3.5 months in the mountains so far, but it’s all been in one small watershed – there’s a lot more to see!

Things get exciting here in July when the visitors start arriving – first Sam & Jamie on July 5th and shortly after our three week adventure is done, my parents and brother are coming. It’s going to be great to see some familiar faces again and get to share some of these wild experiences with people I really know…

After my parents go, I’ve got a month to explore South India (trip in the planning stages) and then I’m out of here, back home to Canada (on or before Sept. 30th when my visa expires). From there – who knows…

So back to catching up with the world, I’ve enjoyed Mayali and in many ways like it better than Dehradun, but after awhile the feelings of isolation get to me, and so it’s nice to be connected again.

Hi everyone!

I don’t know exactly what’s going to happen when I get back to Dehradun, my short terms plans are uncertain at best. As I’ve said, I’m hoping to be able to call it quits at PSI early (June 16th) and go up to Mussoorie to take part in an intriguing workshop being organized by SIDH (the people whose calendar I designed back in November while I was learning Hindi). However, in previous discussions with Debashish, I’d told him I’d stay with PSI until the end of June, and given the amount of work (especially documenting this mess of stuff we’ve done here in the field lately), I don’t think he’s going to be too keen on me skipping out early. In the end though, I’m only a volunteer here at PSI and so have a lot more power to set my own schedule, and the way I’m feeling now, it’d take a miracle/horrid disaster to make me stay with PSI. It’s not the way I’d like to leave the organization after working here for 5 months, but I don’t see anything changing anytime soon, and I’m not going to wait around for them anymore.

However, whatever happens (I leave early or stay til July), I’m pretty sure that this is my last time in Mayali (unless I end up doing the Char Daam, and then perhaps I’ll whizz through on one of those yatri busses – on second thought, knowing the condition of that road & those busses, maybe not). To mark this change in my life, I feel like I should try to sum up my time here in Mayali, what I’ve done, what I’ve felt, what I’ve learned etc., but I know that I can’t do that. This experience has just been so diverse that it can’t be summarized, and as I’ve eluded to at times, I think there are parts of it that I won’t fully absorb/understand until much later.

Tonight was one of those times, I’d been passing time playing Civ III (my only form of escapism here as I can’t do any more website design at this point without an internet connection and I’ve read all the English language material (worth reading) that’s available within 25km) but after awhile got fed up with it and so took advantage of the beautiful evening weather to go up and just wander around the bazaar. Looking around at it, the place I’ve come to call home for the majority of the past 5 months, I felt a real connection with the place, and felt that it was full of magic. The fading glow of sunset was bathing everything in a beautiful orange glow, but most of the little shops/houses had a lightbulb dangling from the ceiling, acting as tiny (rustic) spotlights for the cast of people hanging out, chatting about the day, the price of vegetables or whatever else came to mind. Those who weren’t in the shops were out on the street, parents strolling with kids in tow, boys walking up the street, laughing and carrying on, arms draped over eachothers’ shoulders (many westerns likely assume that most Indian boys are gay, but the truth is that friendship is much stronger here and physical contact is normal – maybe because there are such strict social taboos again men and women interacting in public) and sadhus (the grubby, otherworldly holy-men on pilgrimage, walking from their villages all over India to the sacred mountain temples with a small blanket and metal tiffin as their only luggage) wandering into town after a long day on the road. Someone had their speaker-system on and was playing the soundtrack from some recent Hindi film, but the volume had been turned down so rather than drowning out life (as it usually does), it acted as the perfect background music for the show unfolding before my eyes. Mayali itself seemed cleaner than usual, there was only minor amounts of trash collected in the gutters along the road and the vehicles (taxis, jeeps, trucks and busses) had been parked neatly with care. It was a place in peace

It was a truly amazing experience, and I just stood in the middle of the road slowly gazing around, soaking it all up. I felt like a child discovering a new world in their backyard – something I was so familiar with had suddenly bloomed, exposing a new face to the world – one I’d seen hinted at in pieces before, but never all at once like this. It was truly magical, and something I will remember for a long time.

Mayali has certainly left its mark on me, but I’ve left my mark on Mayali too. In the physical sense, my bootprint is stamped into the landing going down to our room (it was poured yesterday and hadn’t quite dried by the time I came back exhausted from mapping Makhet so in plodding down the stairs, I jumped the last step and landed solidly on the semi-solid concrete) and in the mental sense, I am firmly fixed in the minds of all the locals I met/talked to, and even those who just saw me from afar (everyone knows me here, and if they overcome their shyness, come up to me and tell me exactly where/when the met me and ask if I remember them – unfortunately I usually don’t). As for Mayali’s impact on me, I’m a little slimmer and in better shape than when I started (a consequence of eating only simple – but healthy – rice, dal, roti and subjee, and hiking up and down the mountainside every day to visit the villages), and I’ve come to appreciate the simplicity (not to be confused with ease) of rural mountain life – particularly the way the people peacefully accept it (whether they like it or not).

Seeing the women working stoically day-in and day-out (be it carrying 50kg of wood from the jungle 10km away, weeding the fields, manually threshing the wheat or doing any of the multitude of house-chores they are tasked with), and seeing the men – sometimes toiling away at daily labour (be it shoveling rubble/scree, breaking boulders into gravel with little hammers, driving oxen and plough in each of their little tiny terraced fields, building buildings etc), sometimes lounging around (gambling in the shade of a tree next to the little local temple, smoking bidis and chatting over chai at the local tea shack) and sometimes just wandering along the mountain paths/roads (the grandfathers ambling along empty roads in their white kurtas, “Nehru cap” on head and walking stick in hand, sometimes herding goats and sometimes just “passing time”), everyone seems to contentedly accept their lot when a North American would complain of boredom, excessive work or lack of resources. Makes me wonder about our lifestyle – spending so much of our time working hard so we can earn money to spend entertaining ourselves in our limited free time – always doing something and never pausing for a minute to stop and just let the world unfold in its own way. There’s a lot to think about here, and for this reason – the chance to get out here and experience this world first-hand, I think the past 5 months have “been worth it” despite all the challenges associated with the work.

With all this in mind, I’ll try to make the most of my last two days here, and at the same time, mentally prepare myself for my arrival back in Dehradun and the associated culture-shock of re-emersing myself in the chaos that is most of India. I know I’m going to miss Garwhal, this is a special little region in the massive agglomeration that is India, but for now, I’m counting down the hours til I’m back in Dehradun.

So far things have been going well, the October weather in Delhi when I arrived was warmer than I would have liked, but soon enough I was up in Mussoorie and back in reasonable temperatures. November was nice (days warm, nights cool) and December nights in Mussoorie were actually cold. However, before it got too bad I was off on my Western Adventure and back down into the plains/desert where it was again warm days and cool nights. Coming back to Dehradun in January and then out into the Himalaya, I got to experience a bit more cold weather, but nothing I wasn’t accustomed/prepared for. February was quite similar, a little warmer but still nice (hiking in the mountains and not sweating too much), but by March things started warming up. Coming back to Dehradun for reporting in early March, the weather got really ugly – blazing sunshine and burning heat. Walking the 1km flat road from the guesthouse to the office (and visa-versa) became a real endurance test and finding the energy/motivation to get up after lunch and go back to work was a real challenge. At this point I started to get a little scared about summer, here in India the holiday of Holi marks the cultural start of summer (and usually the climate agrees) so I was feeling the heat even before it really started. A two week tour in the mountains helped cool me off (though even there things were warming up, not uncomfortable, but not too far off) and then it was off to Thailand. The weather there was even hotter (and importantly humid making a bad combination), but since I spent most of my time near the ocean (or in the air-conditioned malls/skytrain of Bangkok), it wasn’t too bad, and in the end, I think it really helped me get used to the heat so that when I came back to India at the beginning of April, the weather here didn’t feel so bad any more. I survived two weeks in Dehradun without too much trouble (seemed like there was a bit of a cool spell that helped), and then it was out into the mountains for May – summer at its peak. I’m now 2/3rds of the way through May, and here in the mountains, am in the middle of a struggle to survive the Indian summer. In typical Indian style I tried to have as few expectations as possible, but even still this country has managed to completely blow me away.

Whenever I thought of summer in India, I never expected that the challenge would not be surviving the bone-dry heat – but surviving the rain and the cold. However, that’s what’s happened. Right from the beginning of this trip (April 21st), there has been rain at least every other day straight up until today. Most of the rain has come in the form of evening thunderstorms, the sun effectively setting around 5pm (behind the impenetrable blackness of the thunderclouds) and cold rain falling for at least an hour, buffeted around by strong cold winds making everything cold and wet. As if that isn’t enough, I’ve been treated to 2 hail storms in the last week (May 14th and today) and these aren’t little storms either… Something really strange is going on with the weather here, and it’s not just me thinking it, my teammates and all the local villagers are commenting on how they’ve never had a “summer” like this. It’s been so wet lately that we’ve all started saying that summer’s come and gone, and that what we’re now experiencing is the start of the monsoon (not due to start until at least the beginning of July here). As if trying to prove us right, the weather has brought daily rain for the past 5 days, yesterday rained for 2 hours in the morning (all the other rain has been in the evening after a hot/dry start to the day) and this morning though it was hot and sunny, the humidity could be felt in each breath, and I was panting well before usual as we walked out to Makhet for our day of micro-planning exercises there.

Despite what the weather shows and what we say, I know that this is not the real monsoon which sweeps across the entire country from south-east to north-west every June/July. These storms are coming down out of the Himalaya, moving in from Tibet, and the newspapers are reporting that Delhi and the rest of the “Ganges Plains” are experiencing terrifying heat waves just like every other year. Even here in the mountains, the cities/towns down at lower elevation in the valleys along the major rivers – especially ones closer to the plains – are hot and disgusting, as I can attest to based on my trips to Tilwarda (2) and Rudraprayag (1). Bedari even said that he heard a report of someone dying in Srinagar (the one halfway between here and Rishikesh, not to be confused with the famous one in Kashmir) due to heat-stroke. So while it may be cold and wet here, I’m not really complaining, and certainly wouldn’t want to trade places with anyone from the valleys/plains. In fact, the cold/wet combo lately has made me feel right at home reminding me of good old Nova Scotia where April is always cold, drizzly and foggy, while May showers bring June flowers. So while I may be 14,000+km away from home, and 1200m higher than home, it just feels like another spring to me. I’m planning on heading up to (dry, cool) Ladakh during July & August this summer, thus missing the worst of the monsoon, and so it seems like the weather gods have decided that I’m not allowed to be in India without experiencing my share of rain and have brought me a mini-monsoon of my own now. It’s all good though, having my monsoon now means I get to miss the summer, and I’m not sad about that.

However, all the cold/wet lately has posed a bit of a problem because when I packed for this trip, I wasn’t expecting anything like this. I’ve been trying to minimize the amount of stuff I carry around all the time (though my backpack is huge and can fit everything I would ever want to bring, it does get heavy and bulky when full), and so I didn’t pack for all seasons. For example, I left my rainjacket back in Dehradun (who would have thought I’d need a rainjacket in India in April/May), and I also left my sleeping bag (in Dehradun I was sleeping with just a sheet, and though I expected it to be slightly cooler here, I figured that I’d be fine with just the extra (thin) blanket that I knew Sunil had in Mayali) and nearly all my winter clothes (thankfully I did pack one fleece). I’ve always liked the cold (and as I say, would much rather be cold than hot) so it hasn’t been too bad, but looking back, I would have been significantly more comfortable if I’d brought my sleeping bag and a few more sweaters (maybe even a winter hat). There have been some nights recently where I’ve had to wear my long-sleeve shirt to bed so I don’t freeze at night (the blanket really just doesn’t cut it), and even then I still wake up cold with my blanket completely wrapped around me. As for the rainjacket, it hasn’t been as big an issue since most of the rain has been in the evening, but lately we’ve been staying late in Makhet (people don’t arrive for meetings before 2 it seems, so inevitably we’ve been leaving around 5:30 or 6:00) and so have been caught in the the rain a few times. Yesterday I finally broke down and bought an umbrella, and though I generally dislike using them, it has come in handy lately. In the morning (generally hot and sunny) it gets used as a parasol, and then when the evening thunderstorm comes, it serves its normal purpose and keeps me (mostly) dry.

To sum it up, this hasn’t been the summer I expected. Goes to show that a) climate change is happening – big time, and b) as I’ve said before, India always defies expectations.

Today marks a change in the routine here, we (the boys & the kitchen) have moved out of our old room and into 2 smaller rooms next to the girls in the adjacent building. Ever since we took the large room I called home, we’ve never been completely satisfied and have been constantly looking for alternatives. With summer now upon us and the accompanying water shortages requiring constantly tripping down to the source below, we’ve been even more eager to find a better place to live. The fact that Hiralal has now joined our team (bringing us to 6 total), even the big room isn’t big enough for us anymore. When we arrived in Mayali this time, we noticed that the two little rooms adjacent to the girls’ were free, and it didn’t take long for us to decide to move. The rooms are all the same size (small – made for 2) and identical to the ones we passed on initially in January (saying they were too small then), but it’s OK now as we have 3 rooms for the 6 of us instead of 2 rooms for 5. The girls have kept their room as it was, Hiralal and I have moved into one of the new ones, and Bendari has the other (which now doubles as our kitchen). When Sunil returns from holiday next week we’ll have to find a place for him (likely bringing my room up to 3 occupants – something I’d rather not do due to lack of space, but can handle), but all in all I think it’s going to work out. The rooms are a little cleaner (the wall paint is more resistant here and takes a good rubbing to come off) and now that the water source is outside the rooms, we should be able to keep the floors dry and clean. The additional benefit for me is that I am no longer living in the kitchen, so don’t have to put up with the horrendous roaring of the kerosene stove every morning and evening, and I now have a place to retreat to if I want a little time to myself. Our room is likely to remain the office though (and Bendari is using the excuses that since he has to put up with the kitchen and now that there is actually space to sit on the (almost) clean floor, we’re not going to be allowed to hang out & eat on his bed anymore) so it’s not going to be the completely quiet, empty retreat that I would ideally like. Otherwise the rooms are nicer than the old one, there are screens on the windows (meaning I can open them bringing in cool breezes all day & night, and bringing in real daylight – a rare thing in our old room), they’re smaller (cozy), clean, and though there’s no tap in the room, the tap down the hall works all the time so water is no longer an issue. Though I’d become quite used to it and was almost starting to enjoy it, I’m not too sad that I’ll no longer have to go and fetch buckets of water from the source anymore.

Long-term plans are still in limbo (a little more so now), but it looks like I’ll only be spending one month in the new home. Basically, I’m starting to get sick of work (all the confusion, lack of vision, pointless work, bossiness from superiors, trekking 4km every day in the blazing heat of summer at midday, feeling like I’m not contributing anything valuable to the project, and the fact that I’ve been here long enough that I don’t feel like I’m learning anything more) and so am starting to consider calling it quits at the end of May rather than the end of June. We’ll see how the next few days go.

We had a free afternoon yesterday as we ended up being driven out to Mayali in the PSI jeep rather than having to take the bus. This meant that the trip took only 7 hours instead of 9, and since the driver wanted to get back to Dehradun on the same day, we left at 6:00am and reached Mayali at 1:30. As early as this was, it was too late to do any field work, so we had the afternoon off – a nice break after a long, uncomfortable, early-starting journey. Supna and Hiralal both went immediately to sleep, but I sat around for awhile, exploring some of my old writing on my computer, and going back and reading things I’d written for this website previously. It was kinda neat (and a little strange) seeing all that stuff again, and made me re-realize how much things have changed over the past few months and years. Going from university life to assembling seismic monitoring stations in the Canadian Arctic to India seems about as big a series of changes as you can get, and even here India my life has gone from studying Hindi in peaceful Landour to backpacking around Western India and now to doing community level social-research in remote villages in the Himalaya. Talk about diversity. Even looking at my life here in Mayali and comparing it to when I first arrived, while some things are surprisingly consistent, there have been changes.

The biggest change in my life here in Mayali (compared with the daily routine I wrote back in February when we first settled in here) has been that ever since the beginning of summer (beginning of March – this is India), the one benefit of our room (attached bathroom with running water) has gone because the tap now only gives air. Apparently Mayali only has 2 year-round water sources and though thankfully we are very close to one, our tap water apparently comes from another place (makes me wonder where, but it’s probably better not to think about that..). However, the adjacent building (where the girls’ room is) has a pump down at the spring which provides water to their building year-round, and so we occasionally sneak a bucket or two from there and justify it by saying that if they were on their own, they’d use at least that much water. The building owner’s mother (Dadi-ji as they say here) is a sweet-heart and doesn’t mind, but the owner yells at us when he catches us taking water from his building to our room/kitchen in the other building, saying that since our kitchen isn’t in his building, we can’t use his water there (I he’s still a little miffed that we took only one room in his building). With the tap dry and the easy water next-door “off-limits”, we’ve been forced to act like most Indian villagers and bring all our water up from the spring in buckets.

Compared to most other people, we still have it easy as the spring is quite close (>100m), but for someone like me who has lived their entire life with running water always available in their house, it’s taken a bit of getting used to. It makes you appreciate how much water we use in our lives. This has been especially true for me, as the job of fetching water more often than not falls on me. It seems to me that there is some cultural stigma against fetching water here – my co-workers always put off getting water, and when we run out, everyone sits around telling the others to get fetch it instead of getting it themselves. I don’t really understand it, sure it’s an annoyance and means a fair bit of effort, but it doesn’t seem to be that big a deal for me. At times I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that in this country, it is predominantly the poor villagers who fetch water – the middle (“developed”) class and certainly the upper class all have running water in their houses. For them, I wonder if having to go fetch water seems degrading, and means associating themselves with people of lower status. It’s one thing I’ve noticed about the middle-class here, whatever “development” they have been able to achieve (mostly recently achieved, eg. electricity, running water, personal vehicles, private houses etc.), they are very reluctant to do without, and complain endlessly when they are “deprived”. It’s part of the Indian mentality that I don’t really understand… Anyway, it all boils down to the fact that usually before they’ve stopped arguing about who should go get water, I’ve gotten fed up with it all and gone and fetched it myself. Someone’s got to do it, and given that I do very little work in the preparation of meals here, I figure that it’s only fair that I should do my part.

So every morning, the first thing I do after waking up is fetch 2 buckets of water (about 20l each), one drinking water and the other for washing/toilet. This usually gets us through the morning (though there are sometimes some dirty dishes left), but when we come back after the day’s work, we need more water and so I go fetch another two buckets. Similarly, this usually lasts us through the evening, but sometimes we run out and so I’m forced to take my headlamp and go get a bucket or two after supper (after dark) so we can wash dishes etc.

As I said, I don’t mind that concept that we (I) have to fetch water, but I certainly do mind the way we have to get water, in particular the condition of the path down to the spring. Though it’s short, it’s steep and narrow (barely wide enough for one person carrying a bucket, let along for two people to pass) with a 70˚ slope down the mountain on one side and a stone/cement retaining wall on the up-slope side. Most importantly it’s just a dirt path, and though there are some quasi-steps carved into the dirt by the constant stream of people going up and down, they’re well worn (rounded), too small for me (the average shoe-size of the users is likely around 7 while I’m size 13) and inevitably wet (slippery) from the dripping/spilling buckets/clothes/bodies returning up the path. Add in a few big rocks that I think are supposed to be steps (but are much more annoying/awkward than beneficial) and a fallen tree jutting out into the path, and it’s treacherous footing and tough navigating – especially at night. Trying to climb up in with a full bucket of water (and not spill much/any) while wearing only sandals (wearing shoes to the spring is just asking for wet feet) is quite a challenge, but at least my sandals have straps around the back of my ankles (everyone else here wears chappals, bad enough normally, but trying to walk uphill in them with wet feet (making them uber-slippery) is a nearly impossible, gravity-defying feat they somehow manage – I tried once in borrowed chappals and ended up walking barefoot, promptly swearing never to do it again).

Such a lot to say about one little piece of my life! Multiply this by the billion amazing/crazy things that are constantly happening to me here, and you hopefully get a sense of why I’m so back-logged in updates. There’s just too much to say, but that’s India for you…

I walked out onto the front step of the office, pressed a couple buttons on my cell phone and suddenly was listening to the SFU Residence Automated phone system, almost exactly half way around the world. Technology is pretty amazing, our world is so small these days. However, Evan wasn’t in his room (likely still out working or having fun with his friends – midnight is still very early for university students), and unlike here in India (and Canada for that matter), I’m the only person in my family with a cell phone, so I had to settle for leaving a happy birthday message on his answering machine (something that I realized Indians don’t have/use).

I went back to work (not having gotten the break I wanted), but lunch time came soon enough so we all packed up to head back to the guesthouse. While waiting for Supna, everyone else was hanging out in the office entry room just chatting. I was tired and hot and so not completely following the (Hindi) conversations, but at one point I tuned in to hear Hiralal questioning Sunil about when his younger brothers’ birthday. Hiralal seemed to think that it was today, but Sunil was quite confused and told him that wasn’t true. After some back and forth, I realized that Hiralal must have gotten confused and so I told him (and everyone else assembled there) that it was in fact my brothers’ birthday. They all laughed at the miscommunication and passed on congratulations to Evan. Then Hiralal asked me about the birthday party… I was confused for a second, and then replied that since Evan was back in Vancouver, the party was there. They all laughed again, but then Hiralal asked, “but what about our party?” and everyone became quiet and looked at me curiously.

Apparently (as everyone made it clear to me), in Indian culture, when anything good happens to anyone in your family, you’re supposed to “share the happiness” and buy treats for everyone you know. I had been exposed to it before – Bendari had bought us all sweets in Mayali for his wedding anniversary, and just that morning someone had come through the office with sweets for everyone because someone from the office had just had a baby girl (I didn’t pay attention to exactly what the reason was, I just took a ladu) – but I thought it only applied to yourself and didn’t realize that it extended to your entire family. In a way in makes sense, Indians almost never eat sweets without some occasion, but if you’re supposed to give treats to all your friends and co-workers every time it’s your second cousin’s wife’s birthday (this is Indian families we’re talking about), there is usually enough “occasions” to keep everyone’s sweet tooth satisfied.

However, while I could understand the logic of the whole system, it still didn’t seem to make sense to me, and served as a good reminder that although I have adapted to India in most ways, I’m not an Indian. Where I come from, if it’s your brother’s birthday, everyone you know will ask you to pass on Happy Birthday wishes for them, and in some cases might even ask you to pass on on a small gift. For us, the person whose birthday it is is the one who gets the presents, but here it’s everyone else who gets a treat. For this reason, the thought of going out and buying everyone a treat for my brother’s birthday just didn’t seem right, so I didn’t run off to the sweet shop as soon as I was asked.

However, it wasn’t just cultural differences that kept me back, it was the way everyone was asking. Back home, you would never dream of asking someone else to go out and buy you a treat, even asking someone to share something they’ve already bought is tough enough. Furthermore, it was the way that everyone was asking that put me off – it was a cross between a spoiled child whining for a treat and your boss giving you a subtle suggestion that you know is really an order, neither of which I like. I’ve always had trouble with subtly, I hate it and try to avoid it whenever possible. If you can’t say something directly, you shouldn’t be saying it at all is my philosophy. Finally, I wasn’t entirely sure whether they were being serious saying I should buy them all a treat – I don’t know Indian culture well enough, and so the whole combination of factors meant that I didn’t know what to do, and so ended up side-stepping questions and just ignoring comments about the whole affair.

Unfortunately, no one gave up, and so throughout the entire afternoon, I kept getting regular reminders from people that they still hadn’t received their treat yet. I kept on ignoring it, trying to find a time/place where I could discretely ask Sunil and/or Supna what really was going on, and what I should do about it, as they were the only ones I trusted to give an honest answer. The fact that they had kept completely silent on the whole issue was one of the big reasons that I continued to hold out…

By 5:30 I still hadn’t decided what to do, and still hadn’t had a chance to ask my trusted advisors. With quitting time fast approaching, the comments and “friendly visits” started increasing dramatically in frequency. I heard it all, every possible angle, but the more they pleaded, the less I wanted to actually get them anything. The worst came when Basil pointed out that Rs. 100 is only about $3, asking why I couldn’t afford to spend such a tiny sum to make my colleagues happy. After living in India for over 6 months, Rs. 100 is Rs. 100 to me, and I am as stingy as any Indian – always waiting for my Rs. 1 change on my Rs. 5 vickram fare every time I go downtown, and bargaining Rs. 5 off a Rs. 15 item at a shop. Anytime I hear people converting prices into dollars, it makes me feel like they see me not as a person, but as a walking money tree ripe for picking. Yes I do have a lot of money by Indian standards, and yes I can easily blow Rs. 100 on something I want without pausing, but to me, money still has value, and I refuse to buy things just because I can. There’s too much worthless, pointless junk in this world, and I will not encourage it. For all these reasons, hearing prices in dollars is a huge insult to me, and once I heard that about the treats, I made up my mind – there would be no candy for the spoiled whining babies. I didn’t tell them this though (it would have just increased their determination), and so continued evading/ignoring their pleads. To leave the office at the end of the day, I had to run the gauntlet past everyone, and they had all gathered in the entrance way almost as if they were waiting for me. I only managed to make it out by saying that I’d try to bring something the next day.

One the way back to the guesthouse, I finally had a chance to talk with Sunil and Supna. They asked what I’d thought of the whole situation, and seemed somewhat surprised (but a little impressed) that I’d held out all day. They explained that while it certainly would be appropriate for me to give treats to friends/colleagues on an occasion such as a brother’s birthday, it is on the fringes of Indian culture and most people wouldn’t think twice if you didn’t give anything. They said that what I had witnessed was part of the PSI culture – everyone always wants treats, and they take advantage of any possible excuse to try and get junior employees to appease their sweet tooth whenever it strikes. Most people give in quite quickly when senior staff start asking for things – keeping the upper echelon happy certainly is a big thing here (at least if you want to go anywhere in your career), but I’ve never really bothered about that, and here I enjoy a special status as a foreigner, so there aren’t the same pressures/consequences for me. Indians still have some inferiority complex about white skin, even 50 years after the British left.

Needless to say, I didn’t bring anything the next day, and though I got a couple comments about this, the second try was much weaker and they quickly gave up. I think they had decided that I wasn’t going to give in to peer-pressure, and so it wasn’t worth the effort. As for me, I’d decided that I had no problem buying sweets for all, but it would only happen when I wanted to give them, or maybe if they asked politely. So to finish this off, Happy Birthday Evan, here’s a digital kilo of ladu for you, and one for all my other friends out there who have given me so much and asked for little in return. Best wishes to all!