Rajasthan

Namaste!

Sorry for the delay in blog posts. I had to post them at once because I have been traveling with lack of access to internet. (Thanks to my friend Prashant who I have been calling daily to get my internet card to work.) I have one post which actually goes before this one, but I can’t post it until I get back to Delhi because I have it saved in a different location.

Emily and I have been really busy traveling in Rajasthan. It’s been a combination of work and pleasure for me, but all of it has been a lot of fun and much different from my previous travels in India. We started the trip in Alwar, Rajasthan, where we met my Fulbright advisor for a conference on Decentralization and Rural Governance. The conference itself was held at the Dadhikar Fort (although we stayed at a local hotel). Besides eating all types of delicious food (including Rajasthani food), people from all over India and the world were brought together to discuss the impact of Panchayati Raj. Panchayati Raj is an Indian law which was passed in 1999 to reserve 33% of the seats on local village councils for women. The law acts as an empowerment mechanism for women because they are granted access to service on the local governing body.

The studies presented in this conference provide empirical evidence that the presence of women on Panchayats has a positive impact on the provision of public services. One of those public services includes the provision of clean drinking water. In addition, they were able to show that health services and other infrastructure (electricity, roads, etc.) have improved after women had been allotted seats on the Panchayats. Because women are primarily responsible for providing water to their households, granting them this access to decision-making authority is shown to have positive outcomes.

Interestingly, this pro-women conference was led by a large group of men. There were a number of women present, but none of them presented any papers. This is interesting considering the fact that the papers recognized that appointing women as the head of household makes the entire household less vulnerable to shocks caused by natural disasters (flood, drought, etc.) and family problems (loss of job, illness, etc.).

One of the especially interesting papers was presented by a professor of economics at Brown University. His unique approach led to the conclusion that bribes are an effective way of obtaining your desired result. After being probed for clarification by the crowd, he clarified that it was an effective mechanism when working with an imperfect governance structure. In particular, he found that the poor were able to influence their elected leaders into obtaining their desired outcome. In village Panchayats, individuals are confronted with the question of voting for the most competent and effective leader or the leader with whom they agree in terms of policy. Individuals tend to vote for the competent leader rather the one that agrees with their views. Then, they bribe the official to act in the manner which benefits them.

Enough on the research presented at the conference. I have to say that the setting was absolutely incredible. The opening took place beneath the stars in this beautiful fort in Rajasthan. We enjoyed so much good food every day. The Rajasthani thali was probably the most interesting. We had a little taste of many typical Rajasthani dishes. Rajasthani food is considered by most Indians to be rather dry. Because Rajasthan is situated in the desert, it was difficult to obtain fruits and vegetables for food preparation. Therefore, many of the foods are made of lentils and different types of flours. For example, they make corn flour rotis and mixed grain rotis which are quite delicious. To my surprise, Indian sweets are growing on me. My favorite thing at the conference was the kulfi (a pistachio/almond ice cream), but I also liked the gulab jamun and halwa. Most sweets are full of lots of sugar, ghee, and milk which taste pretty good after finishing a very spicy meal.

At the conclusion of the conference, we visited the Sariska Tiger Reserve, and I am pleased to announce that I saw my first tiger, twice! It was pretty exciting. I was sitting next to my advisor who planned the entire conference, so he was thrilled to say the least! At this park, 22 tigers were poached in 2004, and they have since introduced other tigers. There are currently 7 in the park, which they track. Therefore, it feels a little like cheating that we saw the tiger because they had been tracking it. However, we were still very lucky. The tiger had apparently been resting since 8:00am and decided to wake up for a yawn when we arrived around 4:30pm. Emily even managed to snap some pictures!

From Alwar, Emily and I went on to Jaipur and are on our way to Jodhpur. She has written up a very nice description of what we have been doing. You can check it out on her blog with some pictures at Emily-solongstatusquo.blogspot.com.

Stay in touch and I hope to talk with you soon.

Margaret

P.S. My Hindi skills have been quite effective in keeping our expenses down traveling. Sure, I attract a lot of attention as a white, female Hindi speaker, but I can usually get much closer to the Indian prices by speaking Hindi. It also came in handy at the train station when our train to Jodhpur left four hours late!

This picture was taken on the bus between Alwar and Delhi.

This is taken from inside the fort in Alwar.

The fort itself. It's a great place for a conference.

On the way to Sariska Tiger Reserve.

Emily caught the lion mid-yawn!

Amber Fort - Jaipur, Rajasthan

All pictures copyright Emily TeKolste.

The Party Scene in Mussoorie

The Party Scene in Mussoorie

I am wrapping up my study at the Language School next week! I can’t believe that I have already been in India for almost four months and am almost finished with my formal Hindi study. I think overall I will be ready to be working and using my Hindi rather than going to class and studying every day, but I am definitely going to miss Mussoorie. I have made some very nice friends, and I really love this amazing place! However, I also know that I am ready to make my next step and need to be challenged to use my Hindi more consistently. I think that the first month in the village will be really valuable for my Hindi. Right now, most of it’s in my head. After a few weeks, I expect it to come out more and improve quite a bit. Before going to the village, I am going to a conference and doing a bit of traveling in Rajasthan, so hopefully my Hindi soaks in over that time.

This past weekend was full of parties. On Friday night, we had a final Landour Lecture Series event which featured music. A sitar player who got his Ph.D. in Sitar and who is teacher at Woodstock treated us to some Twilight Ragaas. These were absolutely beautiful. I remember going to a sitar concert last year at Woodstock, but all I can remember is how the musicians flipped their hair, not the music itself. In a way, classical sitar music is bound because many of the songs include only a certain number of notes. However, on the other hand, it is totally spontaneous. Using five notes, Mr. Maiti made up the songs on the spot. He also explained that in sitar music once the speed of the music increases in a song, it cannot be slowed again. Therefore, he would start off kind of slow and gradually increase speed. After the sunset, we enjoyed some dinner at our venue, DevDar Woods which is a local hotel here in Mussoorie. The meal included hot chapatis, raita (yogurt spiced with some garbanzo beans in this case), rajma (kidney beans), vegetable jafrazzi (a mix of vegetables topped with a bit of paneer, and some chocolate chip ice cream (which was either pretty good or I have been in India too long). To finish off the night, one of the language students played his guitar and treated us to some Irish folk music. This turned into a sing-a-long of everyone coming up with songs they knew, and a few of the Indian guys showed off their guitar skills on American tunes.

On Saturday, I went to one of my women’s Church groups. Because it will probably be my last time, we threw a small party. Everyone brought a dish – chole (chickpeas), rajma (kidney beans), rice, puri (fried roti), aloo mutter (potatoes and peas), and even a fruit salad. I brought the sweets – no bake cookies and cookie dough balls (the two easiest things to make without an oven). The sweets were definitely a hit! We enjoyed each other’s company and the delicious food. Being my last meeting, I agreed to speak on Genesis 13 (we have been making our way through Genesis since I arrived). Before going, I wrote everything I wanted to say in Hindi and had my teacher (another regular at these events) to check it. The story was about Abram and Lot dividing land because they had been fighting. I basically focused on peace and non-controversial topics. Probably the hit sentence from my talk was that “If governments would read this story, there wouldn’t be so much fighting over borders.” The women love this! And I would like to note that I executed the Hindi hypothetical tense flawlessly. =)

After this little party, I headed back to Woodside for party round 2. My neighbors invited almost the entire Woodstock community to our house, which was a lot of fun! A few of my friends from the language school also dropped by, and we had a really nice time. The open house from 2:00-5:00 was extended to about 7:00pm because we were all having so much fun. I also learned about a musician I was deprived of up until this point in my life – Tom Lehrer. He wrote a lot of political satire songs in the 1960s before returning to his position as a professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. Some of the funniest which can be found on youtube for those of you who have also been deprived are “The Vatican Rag” and “We Will All Go Together When We Go.”

On Sunday, I went to the Christmas program at the Church I have been attending. It was a bit different from any I have been to the U.S. but really fun. Although the kids sung some basic Christmas carols, including Jingle Bells in both Hindi and English, my favorite had to be the three young women who were obviously embarrassed but danced to a popular Christian Hindi song.

On Monday evening, I went to another cooking class where we made delicious dal makhani and green peppers with potatoes. It was delicious! Afterwards, I met up with an Australian doctor who has been living in India for years and currently works with an organization on health care and water projects in local villages. I am hopefully going to make a trip to one of the villages with her contacts next week. This should give me some ideas for my upcoming survey. My friend Emily is coming to visit me starting on Saturday. We should have a lot of fun together.

Lots of love,

 Margaret

These are the ladies from my Church group. The young woman on the far left is my teacher Babita. Sunita is my other good friend who 

This is a picture from the Christmas program at the Kellogg Church. Babita and Simon on the right in the front coordinate all the music for the Church.

This is Anita's daughter and Brashinsa (Seema's daughter). I know Brashinsa a bit better. She is a sweet young girl in the eighth grade (if you can believe it).