Hey Everybody,
Sorry it's been so long since I’ve posted. I usually post over the weekend because my professors don’t give us weekend homework. However, the weekend of the fourth I went to Delhi to celebrate. I intended to post early the following week, but things got a little rough, and I spent this weekend recovering. Nevertheless, I’m here now! As I said, I went to Delhi to celebrate the 4th of July. I took the Rajasthan State Bus with a couple of people from school and stayed with Jessie in a hotel downtown. It’s hard to find good values on hotels in Delhi. Either they’re cheap and really crappy or super super expensive. But Jessie did a good job, and our hotel was actually pretty good. It even had a really cool bar & restaurant. I had Beijing Duck, and it wasn’t bad. On Saturday night, The US Embassy hosted a huge celebration (this was the point of the trip). However, Jessie and I got a little confused and actually ended up at the wrong party!
The real party was held at a baseball field/ swimming club that the embassy owns in the diplomatic enclave of the city. As neither Jessie nor I actually registered with the embassy upon arrival in India, we didn’t actually get invitations to the party. A friend jut posted the RSVP info on my Facebook wall, so I just RSVPed hoping the conformation email would have the address. It did not. We knew the party was being hosted by the American Consular Service Department, which, according to GoogleMaps, has its headquarters in the American Center in central Delhi. We knew that we might have the wrong address, so we sent out early to check it out. After about a 15min walk, we got to the American Center. There was a huge line outside and lots of balloons and streamers. "Yay!" we thought to ourselves, "we're in the right place." When we got to the security check, they asked for out invitations. We told them we had RSVPed online, so they checked out passports and let us inside. At this point I was starting to notice that everybody else was Indian. I thought this was a little curious, but I just assumed they were Indian Americans. Then we got inside, and they gave us a little quiz to fill out. Here's an example question: "The American flag has 13 red and white stripes. What do they represent: a) the 13 basic human rights and democratic principals, b) the 13 original colonies, or c) the number of US territories." Jessie and I filled ours out, and turned them in. Then an Indian man came up to us and asked if we were American and could help us with his quiz. His questions were a lot harder, and we actually gave him 2 wrong answers! So, here's what I learned about American History while in India:
1-Francis Scott Key only wrote the words to the anthem. The tune is actually a traditional British drinking song.
2-We don't sing the 2nd and 3rd versus of the Anthem because they are offensive to out British allies.
While I probably should have realized we were at the wrong party at this point, I didn't. We got some paneer pizza and sat down in the auditorium. Then the US Cultural Attaché got up to give a speech. It was the most awkward speech ever! The high points included:
1-The Indian national anthem is more beautiful than the American national anthem
2-India and the US share a special bond because they both kicked out the British
3-While the US is the oldest democracy, India is the largest. However, India truly has democracy in its soul because ever transition of government since Independence has been peaceful (this is only true if you ignore the plane crashes and unlawful arrests).
I wasn't particularly offended by his speech, but I know a lot of Americans who would have been, especially on the 4th. This is when I realized that we might be at the wrong party and started texting my schoolmates to see where they were. However, at this point The Assistant Cultural Attaché came on stage with all the correct quizzes (there weren't many) and started picking them out for raffle prizes. When she drew my name, I stood up to get my prize, and she said "Well, she (meaning me) better have gotten the quiz correct." At this point I was convinced that we were at the wrong party! However, a solo concert immediately started. We were sitting in the middle of the center row, so there was no way to discreetly escape. The music wasn't bad, but I really wanted to get to the correct party. After a polite amount of time had past, Jessie and I snuck out. We spent about 5 whole minutes laughing at ourselves, and then took a taxi to the correct party, which was awesome! Real beef cheeseburgers, ice cream, apple pie, fireworks, an Uncle Sam on stilts, dance music, western style toilets, and full bar tended by cute Marines who hit on us all night.
The rest of the weekend Jessie and I just walked around Delhi. We’ve both already seen most of the major sites, so we just went to the old city and enjoyed the craziness of the bazaars. On Sunday we visited a mosque and a Hindu temple. Both were beautiful. On my way to the bus station we also visited the secretariat and the president’s abode. Theses are probably my favorite sites in Delhi because of the way traditional aspects of Hindu, Muslim, and Buddhist architecture are fused with British Imperial Style.
We got back to Jaipur late Sunday night. I didn’t sleep well Sunday night, Monday night and Tuesday night we didn’t have electricity, and it was 90+ degrees even after sunset. The problem with not sleeping well is that it leaves your body venerable to getting sick. I haven’t been sick yet, and I’m trying really hard to keep it that way. Wednesday, I basically slept all day, so then I couldn’t sleep at night. Finally, Thursday I got a good night’s sleep. As a result, I had a great day Friday! A couple of friends and I went to a beautiful hotel pool (they let non-guests pay to use it until 4pm), then went downtown to walk around. We met more people for dinner, and all in all it was fun night.
On Saturday we went on a field trip to a township that use to be outside of Jaipur, but, due to urban sprawl, is now inside of Jaipur. We toured a cloth dying factory and saw both screen printing and hand block printing being done. We also toured a pottery factory and hand-made paper factory. All the places were actually crazy cool, and not totally focused on having us buy stuff. I ended up buying a hand block printed piece of fabric the size of a full bed. (They don’t really use sheets here the way we do. They just buy various blankets and light cloths, putting one or the other down as a bed cover, depending on the season, and using the other as a blanket). I wasn’t intending on spending very much money, but I totally fell in love with it. The pattern includes paisley, elephants, and camels; the three things that make me think of India. And it was in all my favorite shades of blue. The pattern was circular, which means that it takes more skill to hand-block print it, which means it was more expensive than other similar items. However, I was already in love and couldn’t get excited about any of the other prints. I was complaining to Andrew that I spent too much money on it. He asked how much, and I said it was about 25USD. He laughed. From the way I was complaining about/ justifying my spending, he thought I had spent like 100USD on the fabric (which I might have done in the US if I was being silly). It’s crazy how being here has changed the way I think about the value of things.
One final thing before I have to go: It still surprises me a little that a factory in India could be nothing more than a bunch of people working out in a field with a few basic pieces of machinery. Being from a country where labor in the most expensive input in production, things seem so backwards here where the cost of materials far outweigh the cost of human labor.
My midterm break starts today. Jessie and I are off on a week long trip to Dharamsala and Amritsar. Hopefully I’ll be able to post some pictures along the way.
Next, we were off to Amritsar, the holy sight of Sikhism. After McLeod Ganj, Amritsar seemed hectic and hot. However, the Golden Temple is AMAZING, and we found some other cool sights to enjoy as well. We visited a Hindu cave temple which was not a cave at all. In fact, the temple was reminiscent of a carnival Fun House. We also traveled to the border crossing between Pakistan and India to witness the daily closing of the border ceremony. To say there in animosity between Pakistan and India is an understatement. The entire event is a crazy piece of theater between guards on respective sides who essentially mirror each other's movements. On the Indian side there is a MC who gets the crowd going, shouting patriotic slogans and intuits across the border. It was like being at a sports game where the rivalry between the teams is great.
