Thank you very much to all the readers of Bharoter Dinratri. You have obviously noticed that I am no longer posting to this blog, having returned to the US last summer. Please find updated information and new blog entries at the locations linked below. Thanks again for visiting! I will keep the site alive so that you can still read the old essays and have links to my AIF hosts and colleagues.
New professional website: http://www.brianheilman.com
New blog (opening soon): http://bleedingmoments.blogspot.com
Peace.
Be well.
Brian
1.26.2009
6.11.2008
My Space
One of the five "suggestions for successful travel blogging," according to the document of the same name that I wrote for CSB/SJU study abroaders, is "Always always always be thinking of your next blog entry." And although you might think, seeing how long its been since I've posted anything good, that I've abandoned this and other principles of good blogging, it's simply not true. I am, now as ever, geekily dedicated to my blog writing. I am always always always thinking of the following three blog entries, all of which I have (obviously) yet to write:
1. I've Gotten So Gram. "Gram" means "village" in Bengali (pronounce it to rhyme with "mom," not "Sam"), and the blog at its core is about all the ways in which I have converted myself into a functional village resident here in India. Sound boring and obvious? It's not. Superficially, it's about Shah Rukh Khan and Rani and cricket and various brushes with stardom. All of which, as in a good personal essay it must, makes its way back to a boring but potent point about adapting to new surroundings.
2. My Relationship. No, this is not about "Sushmita," the imaginary girlfriend for whom (or so I convinced my mother on April Fool's Day) I have decided to live in India permanently. This blog is about my relationship with the Bengali language at present. I've been navigating my whole life in Bengali for the better part of the past year, and I have yet to reflect on it properly in writing. Again you're thinking that the blog sounds boring. No way. This blog is constant action. Verbal fisticuffs. Racism in the public square. Tension and more tension.
3. Missing The Game I Hate. No, not baseball. I don't hate baseball. I love baseball. The game I hate back home is dating. As in, being a single guy out trying to make new friends and "meet people" in the loaded sense of that phrase. Back home this game is suffocating to my introverted sensibilities, and very frustrating. But still it's easy enough in the U.S. to dismiss the exercise as frivolous and sit on the bench (read: wear grandfather's handed-down clothing, stay in more often than go out), but still catch a lucky break and meet people elsewhere (work, coffeeshop, concerts, wherever). This cannot be said about where I live in India. In Murshidabad, there is no dating culture. There is no dating. There are no mixed-gender social activities for twenty-somethings, most of whom are married. There is little eye contact between opposite-gender peers. There is no physical contact. And in this arid dating environment, I've found myself missing - ever so slightly - the game I love to hate back home. I'll write about some fake dates I've had, the lengths to which I've gone to get a fraction of physical affection (yup, back to the shave-and-massage saloon!), and so on. Very sexy.
I will write all of these blogs - and I WILL write them - just as soon as I get a chance to do anything other than work. I have found myself suddenly with only 12 days remaining of my life in Murshidabad, and given that my team of data entry staff never materialized, I had to punch every last baseline survey sheet into Excel on my own. I've finished the worst of it now, and just might be able to type in the last data tomorrow. It's as boring as it sounds, and although I get through the day quite happily listening to episodes of "This American Life" while number-crunching, after ten hours I can't stand to look at the computer screen anymore and bike out into the rain-drenched village for an evening recharge. Then I read and sleep and rehash the strange recent decisions and comments of my boss over and over in my mind and wake up feeling vacant and start it all again. No surprise, perhaps, that this has been one of the least creative months of my life here.
But it's sure great that this is here. This website, I mean. This notebook this outlet this space. This writing life. It's one of very few things that feels completely my own, completely indomitable by invading forces. It seems precious to me now in a way it never has before, given that the prevailing present atmosphere in most other "spaces" of my life - my bedroom, my fellowship work - is oppressively tense. When I need to, I can return here, to this electronic simulacrum of a sheet of paper, and write a few sentences. It's a home, in many ways. A place where I feel comfortable; where the longer I stay, the more my stresses seem to fade.
I won't belabor this boring introspective point too much. But today I see my blog writing life, not to mention MOCIAB and other deceptively public creative projects I've done, as an attempt to establish, inhabit, and cultivate a space for myself. Just that. A place to experiment with ideas, and in so doing to find a sense of peace.
That's all. I'm sorry to be so boring, and to have to continue using such vague language about the work/life drama currently gripping Katna and everyone in it right now. It's a matter of safety, and also of respect to my host organization. Soon enough we'll be chatting about it over coffee. And you'll have some great star-power, fisticuffs, and sexual tension blogs to hold you over in the meantime. Just give me a week or two.
1. I've Gotten So Gram. "Gram" means "village" in Bengali (pronounce it to rhyme with "mom," not "Sam"), and the blog at its core is about all the ways in which I have converted myself into a functional village resident here in India. Sound boring and obvious? It's not. Superficially, it's about Shah Rukh Khan and Rani and cricket and various brushes with stardom. All of which, as in a good personal essay it must, makes its way back to a boring but potent point about adapting to new surroundings.
2. My Relationship. No, this is not about "Sushmita," the imaginary girlfriend for whom (or so I convinced my mother on April Fool's Day) I have decided to live in India permanently. This blog is about my relationship with the Bengali language at present. I've been navigating my whole life in Bengali for the better part of the past year, and I have yet to reflect on it properly in writing. Again you're thinking that the blog sounds boring. No way. This blog is constant action. Verbal fisticuffs. Racism in the public square. Tension and more tension.
3. Missing The Game I Hate. No, not baseball. I don't hate baseball. I love baseball. The game I hate back home is dating. As in, being a single guy out trying to make new friends and "meet people" in the loaded sense of that phrase. Back home this game is suffocating to my introverted sensibilities, and very frustrating. But still it's easy enough in the U.S. to dismiss the exercise as frivolous and sit on the bench (read: wear grandfather's handed-down clothing, stay in more often than go out), but still catch a lucky break and meet people elsewhere (work, coffeeshop, concerts, wherever). This cannot be said about where I live in India. In Murshidabad, there is no dating culture. There is no dating. There are no mixed-gender social activities for twenty-somethings, most of whom are married. There is little eye contact between opposite-gender peers. There is no physical contact. And in this arid dating environment, I've found myself missing - ever so slightly - the game I love to hate back home. I'll write about some fake dates I've had, the lengths to which I've gone to get a fraction of physical affection (yup, back to the shave-and-massage saloon!), and so on. Very sexy.
I will write all of these blogs - and I WILL write them - just as soon as I get a chance to do anything other than work. I have found myself suddenly with only 12 days remaining of my life in Murshidabad, and given that my team of data entry staff never materialized, I had to punch every last baseline survey sheet into Excel on my own. I've finished the worst of it now, and just might be able to type in the last data tomorrow. It's as boring as it sounds, and although I get through the day quite happily listening to episodes of "This American Life" while number-crunching, after ten hours I can't stand to look at the computer screen anymore and bike out into the rain-drenched village for an evening recharge. Then I read and sleep and rehash the strange recent decisions and comments of my boss over and over in my mind and wake up feeling vacant and start it all again. No surprise, perhaps, that this has been one of the least creative months of my life here.
But it's sure great that this is here. This website, I mean. This notebook this outlet this space. This writing life. It's one of very few things that feels completely my own, completely indomitable by invading forces. It seems precious to me now in a way it never has before, given that the prevailing present atmosphere in most other "spaces" of my life - my bedroom, my fellowship work - is oppressively tense. When I need to, I can return here, to this electronic simulacrum of a sheet of paper, and write a few sentences. It's a home, in many ways. A place where I feel comfortable; where the longer I stay, the more my stresses seem to fade.
I won't belabor this boring introspective point too much. But today I see my blog writing life, not to mention MOCIAB and other deceptively public creative projects I've done, as an attempt to establish, inhabit, and cultivate a space for myself. Just that. A place to experiment with ideas, and in so doing to find a sense of peace.
That's all. I'm sorry to be so boring, and to have to continue using such vague language about the work/life drama currently gripping Katna and everyone in it right now. It's a matter of safety, and also of respect to my host organization. Soon enough we'll be chatting about it over coffee. And you'll have some great star-power, fisticuffs, and sexual tension blogs to hold you over in the meantime. Just give me a week or two.
5.18.2008
So Much For Sohojogita
After the marathon-running and hoping-against-hope had finished, polling day in Murshidabad was a decisive defeat for the voices of cooperation. Sunday, May 18th, 2008, was the bloodiest day of election polling in the history of Bengal. The latest reports show that 18 people were killed in clashes between CPI-M and Congress party workers, with at least 16 dead in Murshidabad. Countless polling booths were captured by both parties, and as a result both parties are now calling for re-polling before the corrupt returns have even been counted.
I was not in Murshidabad on polling day by choice: I came down to Kolkata to avoid election day in the village. Still, the news is unsettling (particularly so if the idea of re-polling becomes - an almost certainly violent - reality). To be clear: there were no deaths in my village or the closest neighboring villages.
Read:
18 Die On Bloodiest Day Of Polls (Times of India)
Dad Dies In Search Of Son (The Telegraph)
See:
Cover of Anandabazaar Patrika, May 19 2008
Headline: "Bhoter Shikar Bhotar" - "The Victim of the Vote is the Voter"
Please don't worry for my safety. I was and will remain as far away from this violence as I am able. There is no reason for any of the involved parties to target a non-politically-aligned foreigner building schools in their district. I just wanted you all to be aware of the realities of democracy in rural Bengal, especially after the previous post about my half-marathon and message of cooperation. More posts to come very soon.
I was not in Murshidabad on polling day by choice: I came down to Kolkata to avoid election day in the village. Still, the news is unsettling (particularly so if the idea of re-polling becomes - an almost certainly violent - reality). To be clear: there were no deaths in my village or the closest neighboring villages.
Read:
18 Die On Bloodiest Day Of Polls (Times of India)
Dad Dies In Search Of Son (The Telegraph)
See:
Cover of Anandabazaar Patrika, May 19 2008
Headline: "Bhoter Shikar Bhotar" - "The Victim of the Vote is the Voter"
Please don't worry for my safety. I was and will remain as far away from this violence as I am able. There is no reason for any of the involved parties to target a non-politically-aligned foreigner building schools in their district. I just wanted you all to be aware of the realities of democracy in rural Bengal, especially after the previous post about my half-marathon and message of cooperation. More posts to come very soon.
5.15.2008
M'bad to A'bad and Back Again (An Experiment In Hypertext)
After another cooling evening thunderstorm made way for a miraculous orange-vanilla twilight, and as sweet mango juice dripped down my chin and intermittent rain drops plip-plipped on my glasses, I remembered for a moment today that Murshidabad might just be heaven, if it weren't so often hell.
My boss is running for political office, as the district-level candidate of the monstrous (and monstrously powerful) Communist Party of India - Marxist. The CPI-M, as they're called, and their coalition of smaller parties known collectively as "the Left Front" have been in power in our state for nearly 30 years. They are famous for being the longest-serving democratically-elected communist government in the world, and although the party has supervised a higher-than-India-average increase in rural incomes in their lengthy rule (thanks in no small part to Bengal's fertile soil's adaptability to the technological innovations of the nationwide "Green Revolution"), they are also responsible for the ever-sinking standards of the state's education system, among other social setbacks.
Late last year, members of the party's local cadre in Nandigram - a small town in the southwest of the state - murdered a group of their own citizens: farmers protesting the forced conversion of their farmland to an petrochemical plant (part of a CPI-M sponsored economic development package in collaboration with an Indonesia-based MNC). This shocking event attracted national and international disgust, especially after chief minister (the most powerful state official) Buddhadeb Bhattacharya unapologetically declared that the protesters had been "paid back in their own coin." Today "Nandigram" has developed into another place name immediately synonymous with its tragedy, i.e. "Tianenman Square" or "Columbine," and is certainly the first word to enter the mind of a casual observer of Indian politics upon hearing any mention of the CPI-M.
As I wrote in my blog about the half-marathon I created and ran, these local elections often lead to violence at the village level. Indeed, seven party workers - from the CPI-M and RSP - were killed yesterday at the polls in districts farther south (our polling date is May 18). Given my proximity to such a high-profile candidate in a very heated race (Murshidabad is one of only a handful of districts where the CPI-M face stiff competition from the Congress and other parties), it seemed a wise moment to take my AIF-funded exposure visit to another fellow's host NGO. And thus I traversed the entire breadth of India from right to left (geographically) and left to right (politically) and arrived after a nearly 50-hour journey in Ahmedabad, an historic and rapidly developing city in the dry, western state of Gujarat.
Gujarat, one of the true cradles of civilization on the subcontinent (with many Harappan settlement sites and the world's oldest discovered seaport), is every bit the stronghold of India's far right-wing politicians that West Bengal is for the leftists. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the central political arm of the so-called traditional "Hindutva" movement, controls both the will of the state legislators (led by chief minister/badmash Narendra Modi) and the fears of all those minority groups (Muslims, Dalits, among others) against whom their exclusionist politics regularly run.
Please note the absurdity, as Amartya Sen and scores of others have in published works, of claiming to represent the ideals of "traditional Hinduism." Hinduism has no central scripture, no organizational hierarchy, no established creeds, and incredible geographic diversity of practice. For the BJP to declare their particularly narrow version of Hinduism the "official, traditional" practice is a heinous crime against the vital diversity of faiths, passions and practices that make up the undefinable creature of "Hinduism" worldwide. Please read Sen's "The Argumentative Indian" for a full treatment of this issue.
New theory of life (especially life in India): Moving from one absurdity to another and another.
Ahmedabad
Most major cities in India, in response to rapid recent economic progress, have developed multiple personalities. The most common form of this "disorder," so to speak, is the "old city" and "new city" phenomenon. Delhi is a potent example, where Old Delhi - with its characteristically frantic narrow lanes and layers of history - lies within fort walls that protected empires of various persuasions down through the ages. The green, spacious New Delhi, on the other hand, is the home of the Indian central government, shiny new skyscrapers and drivers on wide paved highways who - gasp - actually try to stay in their lanes. The same can be seen in the sprawl of "Navi Mumbai" expanding outward from the British-era heart of the city, and in the "Salt Lake" satellite city in Kolkata.
Now I'm no urban historian or anthropologist, and thus I don't have the appropriate vocabulary for all this. "Urban multiple personality disorder," as I call it by default, is certainly global. Yet I get the hunch that the symptoms are particularly intense in ancient and rapidly-developing societies such as India and China. There are urban-suburban dynamics everywhere, but not everywhere does it feel as if a city has been fast-forwarded four hundred years into its own future.
That said, Ahmedabad is unlike any other city - single or multiple-personalitied - that I've ever seen. The Sabarmati River, the famous backdrop of Gandhiji's ashram and "experiments with truth," bisects the city with perfect precision into the eastern "old" and the western "new." Simply by crossing the river, one moves from Sultanate-era mosques to New Boom-era mega-malls. From frantic sabji bazaars to bastions of world-class management training. From streetside debates on the price of fresh buffalo milk to streetside debates on the merits of the new Radiohead album. Even in a nation of dual-personality metropolises, this hard contrast was striking to me.
Gandhiji's room, Sabarmati Ashram
Naptime at Jama Masjid, Old Ahmedabad
One of dozens of malls lining CG Road in New Ahmedabad
NGO Visits
Luckily for me, there are three AIF fellows working in Gujarat, and I got to see all three of them in action at their host NGOs. The first visit was an overnight bus-ride out of Ahmedabad in Bhuj, the district headquarters of the famous Rann of Kachchh, a vast salt desert on the Arabian Sea. Service Corps Fellow Brenna is living and working there with the Khamir Craft Resource Centre, an organization that works on a variety of exciting projects with Kachchhi artisans. Khamir's beautiful campus, built with innovative earthquake-safe materials after Gujarat's devastating earthquake in 2001, hosts training workshops for local weavers, block-printers, bell-makers, leather-workers and more. The Resource Centre also provides raw materials for various affiliated artisans, markets local products to major national retailers, and provides various credit and wealth management opportunities to rural artisans.
Brenna, who unfortunately was battling a lingering stomach infection when I visited, has been spearheading several new documentation projects for Khamir, including an exciting series of documentary films on village artisans.
I next spent a great day with fellow fellow Jeena and her host organization, Navsarjan. Navsarjan is a front-of-the-pack dalit rights organization, indeed one that is recognized by name across India and the world as the current leaders of the Dalit movement started by the great Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. While the organization started as a legal aid organization for persecuted Dalits, they now supervise a wide variety of programs focusing on human rights for all, including the two sites I visited: the Dalit Shakti Kendra and the Centre for Dalit Human Rights. At the vast and impressive Dalit Shakti Kendra campus, Navsarjan provides affordable 45-day training courses in various professions (from clerical work to carpentry, law enforcement to tailoring) for Dalit youth. The campus also hosts Navsarjan's main offices, and thus their administrative and research staff (along with world-famous renaissance man and Navsarjan founder Martin Macwan, whom I was lucky enough to meet). Jeena's mentor and current Navsarjan executive director Manjula Pradeep also works there, and continues Navsarjan's original work in providing legal advocacy for Dalit victims of human rights abuses.
It was a thrilling experience for me, having a bare minimum of legal knowledge or experience, hearing Jeena and Manjula converse briefly about the various cases they're currently working on. Their intense and important daily work includes: prosecuting murderers and rapists, working with the victims of such crimes, building media coverage of these types of still-frequent atrocities, and so on. A far cry from quiet learning centre philosophizing in rural Bengal.
My last NGO visit was with Leila at Saath, an organization that is working to, in the words of its mission statement, "make human settlements equitable living environments where all residents and vulnerable groups have access to health, education, essential infrastructure services and livelihoods options, irrespective or their economic and social status." In other words, its another in a proud tradition of NGOs trying to do just about everything. And although their focus was historically on urban communities, I see on their website now that they have also begun a selection of rural projects. The project that most attracted me to Saath was their Urban Resource Centres (URC) project, similar in scope and aim to the Shiksha Shakti Centres that Street Survivors will start building late this summer. And luckily once again, Leila took me to visit one of the resource centres right before I fell sick with the classic "traveling to new places and drinking new water" stomach bug.
I had a fascinating conversation - through translators - with the director of the Juhapura URC, sharing with him information about the Shiksha Shakti Centres project and the various political/social challenges I expect it to face over its first couple years. One great positive about Saath's URC model is that they didn't move into a new area and attempt to create a new service from scratch. Rather, they built partnerships with existing small community-based-organizations (CBOs in development jargon, but really just a bunch of neighbors who have united to work for some aspect of improvement in their communities) and then provided the space and gentle training for these grassroots CBOs to become proficient "connectors" between community members and their various needs (health services, job training, small loans, and on and on). The URC, thus, isn't a service-provider at all. Rather, it is a connecting hub between service-providers (including but not limited to Saath) and local-level beneficiaries.
There's a lot more to say about what Street Survivors can learn from the Saath URC model, but given that you've already:
City Mouse, Country Mouse
Within the coming weeks, I plan to devote a post to the topic of how "village" I've become after my near-year in Katna. Yes, "village" as an adjective. Yet I'll mention it here as well, because it was really during my trip to Ahmedabad that many of my newfound village sensibilities, previously invisible to me as a fish in the water of Katna, fell awkwardly in front of my eyes. Indeed, Jeena and Leila must have grown tired of hearing the phrase, "Oh wow, in the village we never get to..." over my week with them. I expect these types of experiences only to increase in number, especially after my return to the U.S. Look for a post soon.
Okay this post got long, boring, and outdated. Better post now or trash it. Thanks, if you read this far. Go to Ahmedabad if you get a chance.
Peace.
B
P.S. See the post above (So Much For Sohojogita) for an more complete understanding of why heartbreakingly beautiful Murshidabad can fairly be called "hell."
P.P.S. My boss lost the election.
My boss is running for political office, as the district-level candidate of the monstrous (and monstrously powerful) Communist Party of India - Marxist. The CPI-M, as they're called, and their coalition of smaller parties known collectively as "the Left Front" have been in power in our state for nearly 30 years. They are famous for being the longest-serving democratically-elected communist government in the world, and although the party has supervised a higher-than-India-average increase in rural incomes in their lengthy rule (thanks in no small part to Bengal's fertile soil's adaptability to the technological innovations of the nationwide "Green Revolution"), they are also responsible for the ever-sinking standards of the state's education system, among other social setbacks.
Late last year, members of the party's local cadre in Nandigram - a small town in the southwest of the state - murdered a group of their own citizens: farmers protesting the forced conversion of their farmland to an petrochemical plant (part of a CPI-M sponsored economic development package in collaboration with an Indonesia-based MNC). This shocking event attracted national and international disgust, especially after chief minister (the most powerful state official) Buddhadeb Bhattacharya unapologetically declared that the protesters had been "paid back in their own coin." Today "Nandigram" has developed into another place name immediately synonymous with its tragedy, i.e. "Tianenman Square" or "Columbine," and is certainly the first word to enter the mind of a casual observer of Indian politics upon hearing any mention of the CPI-M.
As I wrote in my blog about the half-marathon I created and ran, these local elections often lead to violence at the village level. Indeed, seven party workers - from the CPI-M and RSP - were killed yesterday at the polls in districts farther south (our polling date is May 18). Given my proximity to such a high-profile candidate in a very heated race (Murshidabad is one of only a handful of districts where the CPI-M face stiff competition from the Congress and other parties), it seemed a wise moment to take my AIF-funded exposure visit to another fellow's host NGO. And thus I traversed the entire breadth of India from right to left (geographically) and left to right (politically) and arrived after a nearly 50-hour journey in Ahmedabad, an historic and rapidly developing city in the dry, western state of Gujarat.
Gujarat, one of the true cradles of civilization on the subcontinent (with many Harappan settlement sites and the world's oldest discovered seaport), is every bit the stronghold of India's far right-wing politicians that West Bengal is for the leftists. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the central political arm of the so-called traditional "Hindutva" movement, controls both the will of the state legislators (led by chief minister/badmash Narendra Modi) and the fears of all those minority groups (Muslims, Dalits, among others) against whom their exclusionist politics regularly run.
Please note the absurdity, as Amartya Sen and scores of others have in published works, of claiming to represent the ideals of "traditional Hinduism." Hinduism has no central scripture, no organizational hierarchy, no established creeds, and incredible geographic diversity of practice. For the BJP to declare their particularly narrow version of Hinduism the "official, traditional" practice is a heinous crime against the vital diversity of faiths, passions and practices that make up the undefinable creature of "Hinduism" worldwide. Please read Sen's "The Argumentative Indian" for a full treatment of this issue.
New theory of life (especially life in India): Moving from one absurdity to another and another.
Ahmedabad
Most major cities in India, in response to rapid recent economic progress, have developed multiple personalities. The most common form of this "disorder," so to speak, is the "old city" and "new city" phenomenon. Delhi is a potent example, where Old Delhi - with its characteristically frantic narrow lanes and layers of history - lies within fort walls that protected empires of various persuasions down through the ages. The green, spacious New Delhi, on the other hand, is the home of the Indian central government, shiny new skyscrapers and drivers on wide paved highways who - gasp - actually try to stay in their lanes. The same can be seen in the sprawl of "Navi Mumbai" expanding outward from the British-era heart of the city, and in the "Salt Lake" satellite city in Kolkata.
Now I'm no urban historian or anthropologist, and thus I don't have the appropriate vocabulary for all this. "Urban multiple personality disorder," as I call it by default, is certainly global. Yet I get the hunch that the symptoms are particularly intense in ancient and rapidly-developing societies such as India and China. There are urban-suburban dynamics everywhere, but not everywhere does it feel as if a city has been fast-forwarded four hundred years into its own future.
That said, Ahmedabad is unlike any other city - single or multiple-personalitied - that I've ever seen. The Sabarmati River, the famous backdrop of Gandhiji's ashram and "experiments with truth," bisects the city with perfect precision into the eastern "old" and the western "new." Simply by crossing the river, one moves from Sultanate-era mosques to New Boom-era mega-malls. From frantic sabji bazaars to bastions of world-class management training. From streetside debates on the price of fresh buffalo milk to streetside debates on the merits of the new Radiohead album. Even in a nation of dual-personality metropolises, this hard contrast was striking to me.
Gandhiji's room, Sabarmati Ashram
Naptime at Jama Masjid, Old Ahmedabad
One of dozens of malls lining CG Road in New AhmedabadNGO Visits
Luckily for me, there are three AIF fellows working in Gujarat, and I got to see all three of them in action at their host NGOs. The first visit was an overnight bus-ride out of Ahmedabad in Bhuj, the district headquarters of the famous Rann of Kachchh, a vast salt desert on the Arabian Sea. Service Corps Fellow Brenna is living and working there with the Khamir Craft Resource Centre, an organization that works on a variety of exciting projects with Kachchhi artisans. Khamir's beautiful campus, built with innovative earthquake-safe materials after Gujarat's devastating earthquake in 2001, hosts training workshops for local weavers, block-printers, bell-makers, leather-workers and more. The Resource Centre also provides raw materials for various affiliated artisans, markets local products to major national retailers, and provides various credit and wealth management opportunities to rural artisans.
Brenna, who unfortunately was battling a lingering stomach infection when I visited, has been spearheading several new documentation projects for Khamir, including an exciting series of documentary films on village artisans.
I next spent a great day with fellow fellow Jeena and her host organization, Navsarjan. Navsarjan is a front-of-the-pack dalit rights organization, indeed one that is recognized by name across India and the world as the current leaders of the Dalit movement started by the great Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. While the organization started as a legal aid organization for persecuted Dalits, they now supervise a wide variety of programs focusing on human rights for all, including the two sites I visited: the Dalit Shakti Kendra and the Centre for Dalit Human Rights. At the vast and impressive Dalit Shakti Kendra campus, Navsarjan provides affordable 45-day training courses in various professions (from clerical work to carpentry, law enforcement to tailoring) for Dalit youth. The campus also hosts Navsarjan's main offices, and thus their administrative and research staff (along with world-famous renaissance man and Navsarjan founder Martin Macwan, whom I was lucky enough to meet). Jeena's mentor and current Navsarjan executive director Manjula Pradeep also works there, and continues Navsarjan's original work in providing legal advocacy for Dalit victims of human rights abuses.
It was a thrilling experience for me, having a bare minimum of legal knowledge or experience, hearing Jeena and Manjula converse briefly about the various cases they're currently working on. Their intense and important daily work includes: prosecuting murderers and rapists, working with the victims of such crimes, building media coverage of these types of still-frequent atrocities, and so on. A far cry from quiet learning centre philosophizing in rural Bengal.
My last NGO visit was with Leila at Saath, an organization that is working to, in the words of its mission statement, "make human settlements equitable living environments where all residents and vulnerable groups have access to health, education, essential infrastructure services and livelihoods options, irrespective or their economic and social status." In other words, its another in a proud tradition of NGOs trying to do just about everything. And although their focus was historically on urban communities, I see on their website now that they have also begun a selection of rural projects. The project that most attracted me to Saath was their Urban Resource Centres (URC) project, similar in scope and aim to the Shiksha Shakti Centres that Street Survivors will start building late this summer. And luckily once again, Leila took me to visit one of the resource centres right before I fell sick with the classic "traveling to new places and drinking new water" stomach bug.
I had a fascinating conversation - through translators - with the director of the Juhapura URC, sharing with him information about the Shiksha Shakti Centres project and the various political/social challenges I expect it to face over its first couple years. One great positive about Saath's URC model is that they didn't move into a new area and attempt to create a new service from scratch. Rather, they built partnerships with existing small community-based-organizations (CBOs in development jargon, but really just a bunch of neighbors who have united to work for some aspect of improvement in their communities) and then provided the space and gentle training for these grassroots CBOs to become proficient "connectors" between community members and their various needs (health services, job training, small loans, and on and on). The URC, thus, isn't a service-provider at all. Rather, it is a connecting hub between service-providers (including but not limited to Saath) and local-level beneficiaries.
There's a lot more to say about what Street Survivors can learn from the Saath URC model, but given that you've already:
- Read about the unexpected new political direction of the director of Street Survivors, and
- Spent 48 hours reading every word on every hypertexted article on this blog,
City Mouse, Country Mouse
Within the coming weeks, I plan to devote a post to the topic of how "village" I've become after my near-year in Katna. Yes, "village" as an adjective. Yet I'll mention it here as well, because it was really during my trip to Ahmedabad that many of my newfound village sensibilities, previously invisible to me as a fish in the water of Katna, fell awkwardly in front of my eyes. Indeed, Jeena and Leila must have grown tired of hearing the phrase, "Oh wow, in the village we never get to..." over my week with them. I expect these types of experiences only to increase in number, especially after my return to the U.S. Look for a post soon.
Okay this post got long, boring, and outdated. Better post now or trash it. Thanks, if you read this far. Go to Ahmedabad if you get a chance.
Peace.
B
P.S. See the post above (So Much For Sohojogita) for an more complete understanding of why heartbreakingly beautiful Murshidabad can fairly be called "hell."
P.P.S. My boss lost the election.
4.30.2008
The Katna-Sundorpur Half Marathon
As I mentioned in a previous post, I've been running a lot over the past few months. And after completing a string of progressively easier ten-mile runs, I decided to add a pinch of race-day excitement to my first half-marathon distance run (20k, 13.1 miles) here in India. So I created and ran in the inaugural "Katna-Sundorpur Half Marathon for Peace and Cooperation," which took place this past Saturday, April 26th.
For the week prior to the run, I built excitement by posting notices at school and talking up the event with other villagers and neighbors. I even rode the whole length of the run on one of our school buses a few days before, both to spread the word and to identify where exactly I'd have to reach to make 10k one way.
Unfortunately, other than assuring me stubbornly that I'd never be able to run that far, no one showed any real interest. So I cranked the excitement up a proverbial notch by shaving my head bald (as in razor bald, shorter than it has ever been in my life). That, I thought, might bring a little more attention to the race and the message.
The message of the race was "Hingsha Noy - Sohojogita Koro," which means essentially "No Violence - Cooperate!" It's a timely message as tensions in the area are crescendoing ahead of the local and state elections on May 18. Historically, these elections lead to (at best) bitter arguments among villagers supporting competing parties and (at worst) attacks on candidates and party officials. Given that none of the parties ever follow through on their campaign promises to villagers anyway (new roads, repaired levees, school improvements, and so on), the violence strikes me as doubly useless. So I decided to be one voice for peaceful cooperation, at least in the eight or nine villages lining the road from Katna (my village) to Sundorpur (10k away, over the Mayurakshi river).
That said, I'm sure that the message most people absorbed was "that white guy is nuts for running so far in the sun," rather than "no violence, cooperate," but what the hell. It was still fun. I got to make a t-shirt, write peace slogans on my body, and run really far.
Although I tried to attract more participants, the race ultimately ended up consisting of only four people: Me, my friend Moti, our school's art teacher Rajesh, and my site mate Maria. Both Rajesh and I set out to run the full distance, but the unpracticed Rajesh gave up after just 2k and rode backseat on Maria's bicycle thereafter. Moti was the support crew, carrying our vast array of racing equipment (one stopwatch, two water bottles, and bus fare for four in case we needed to abandon the race altogether) on his bicycle. Maria (joined by Rajesh after kilometer 2) was in charge of encouragement and photography.
Up until the tough last two or three kilometers, the race was a blast. As loitering dudes left and right stopped to stare at me, I returned with exclamations of the race motto: "No Violence - Cooperate! Keep the Peace!" The most common responses, apart from more prolonged staring, were "Of course!" and "Won't you stop for tea!?" At one point a crowd of dudes ran to me with a notebook. I signed my name and wrote "Hingsha Noy - Sohojogita Koro" in Bangla while running. That was a highlight.
The messages on my body melted away quickly with my sweat, and by even the middle of the race the slogans had become inexplicable blue and red splotches on my chest and back. One guy-on-the-road asked me if his body would turn colors if he ran also. I told him no, this only happens to white people.
And I guess that's all. The race made for a really fun day, and that was probably more the point than preventing political violence. But without the "message" and the publicity stunts (read: baldness), the same amount of fun certainly would not have followed. So, success on all counts for now. Let's just wait and see what happens as the election gets closer.
Thanks for reading, and check out photos below.
The friendly Kuli town barber who gave me my naera haircut and a nice twenty minute massage before the race. He's a doctor for people who can't afford a doctor, he told me, reciting stories of eye infections cured by his homemade ayurvedic potions. Sweet dude.
Naera Brian just moments after the hair sacrifice. I have to admit - the absence of hair, although decidedly ugly, is pleasantly convenient in the oppressive heat of the dry-hot season we're in right now.
Brian, Rajesh and Moti at the starting line. We had a short opening ceremony including an explanation of the race motto (by me) and a keynote address by our honored guest (Maria). The race kicked off just after 4:00 pm, ensuring a beautiful sunset backdrop for the last hour. Notice our hand-painted t-shirts, which included the name, date, and distance of the race on the front, the race motto and signatures of all participants on the back, and names-and-numbers on the left sleeve. Niiiiiice.
Health/Safety/Support/Morale crew chief Matiur Rahaman (Moti). Moti bragged a lot in the week leading up to the race that even if Rajesh and I couldn't finish the whole race, he definitely would (by bicycle). I think I spoiled his fun a bit by finishing comfortably. There really is no "running-as-exercise" (or plain "exercise") culture here, so in most villager's minds 20 kilometers was an impossibly long distance to run.
Easy peasy, kilometer three.
The landscape didn't change much throughout the run: dhan (rice paddy) and more dhan. There's a huge bridge over the Mayurakshi River just before Sundorpur, though, and that was a little bit more exciting.
For the week prior to the run, I built excitement by posting notices at school and talking up the event with other villagers and neighbors. I even rode the whole length of the run on one of our school buses a few days before, both to spread the word and to identify where exactly I'd have to reach to make 10k one way.
Unfortunately, other than assuring me stubbornly that I'd never be able to run that far, no one showed any real interest. So I cranked the excitement up a proverbial notch by shaving my head bald (as in razor bald, shorter than it has ever been in my life). That, I thought, might bring a little more attention to the race and the message.
The message of the race was "Hingsha Noy - Sohojogita Koro," which means essentially "No Violence - Cooperate!" It's a timely message as tensions in the area are crescendoing ahead of the local and state elections on May 18. Historically, these elections lead to (at best) bitter arguments among villagers supporting competing parties and (at worst) attacks on candidates and party officials. Given that none of the parties ever follow through on their campaign promises to villagers anyway (new roads, repaired levees, school improvements, and so on), the violence strikes me as doubly useless. So I decided to be one voice for peaceful cooperation, at least in the eight or nine villages lining the road from Katna (my village) to Sundorpur (10k away, over the Mayurakshi river).
That said, I'm sure that the message most people absorbed was "that white guy is nuts for running so far in the sun," rather than "no violence, cooperate," but what the hell. It was still fun. I got to make a t-shirt, write peace slogans on my body, and run really far.
Although I tried to attract more participants, the race ultimately ended up consisting of only four people: Me, my friend Moti, our school's art teacher Rajesh, and my site mate Maria. Both Rajesh and I set out to run the full distance, but the unpracticed Rajesh gave up after just 2k and rode backseat on Maria's bicycle thereafter. Moti was the support crew, carrying our vast array of racing equipment (one stopwatch, two water bottles, and bus fare for four in case we needed to abandon the race altogether) on his bicycle. Maria (joined by Rajesh after kilometer 2) was in charge of encouragement and photography.
Up until the tough last two or three kilometers, the race was a blast. As loitering dudes left and right stopped to stare at me, I returned with exclamations of the race motto: "No Violence - Cooperate! Keep the Peace!" The most common responses, apart from more prolonged staring, were "Of course!" and "Won't you stop for tea!?" At one point a crowd of dudes ran to me with a notebook. I signed my name and wrote "Hingsha Noy - Sohojogita Koro" in Bangla while running. That was a highlight.
The messages on my body melted away quickly with my sweat, and by even the middle of the race the slogans had become inexplicable blue and red splotches on my chest and back. One guy-on-the-road asked me if his body would turn colors if he ran also. I told him no, this only happens to white people.
And I guess that's all. The race made for a really fun day, and that was probably more the point than preventing political violence. But without the "message" and the publicity stunts (read: baldness), the same amount of fun certainly would not have followed. So, success on all counts for now. Let's just wait and see what happens as the election gets closer.
Thanks for reading, and check out photos below.
The friendly Kuli town barber who gave me my naera haircut and a nice twenty minute massage before the race. He's a doctor for people who can't afford a doctor, he told me, reciting stories of eye infections cured by his homemade ayurvedic potions. Sweet dude.
Naera Brian just moments after the hair sacrifice. I have to admit - the absence of hair, although decidedly ugly, is pleasantly convenient in the oppressive heat of the dry-hot season we're in right now.
Brian, Rajesh and Moti at the starting line. We had a short opening ceremony including an explanation of the race motto (by me) and a keynote address by our honored guest (Maria). The race kicked off just after 4:00 pm, ensuring a beautiful sunset backdrop for the last hour. Notice our hand-painted t-shirts, which included the name, date, and distance of the race on the front, the race motto and signatures of all participants on the back, and names-and-numbers on the left sleeve. Niiiiiice.
Health/Safety/Support/Morale crew chief Matiur Rahaman (Moti). Moti bragged a lot in the week leading up to the race that even if Rajesh and I couldn't finish the whole race, he definitely would (by bicycle). I think I spoiled his fun a bit by finishing comfortably. There really is no "running-as-exercise" (or plain "exercise") culture here, so in most villager's minds 20 kilometers was an impossibly long distance to run.
Easy peasy, kilometer three.
The landscape didn't change much throughout the run: dhan (rice paddy) and more dhan. There's a huge bridge over the Mayurakshi River just before Sundorpur, though, and that was a little bit more exciting.Another note:
It was only afterward that I realized that the date of the half-marathon was the same as the Fruit at the Finish Triathlon at St. John's, in which I've participated three of the past four years. I guess my body had some secret memory of physical exertion attached to this specific week, and wouldn't let me relent even 10,000 miles away from Collegeville. Huh.
It was only afterward that I realized that the date of the half-marathon was the same as the Fruit at the Finish Triathlon at St. John's, in which I've participated three of the past four years. I guess my body had some secret memory of physical exertion attached to this specific week, and wouldn't let me relent even 10,000 miles away from Collegeville. Huh.
4.14.2008
Jah!
Friends, another short post. One fun side project I've recently started is compiling and translating my friend Moti's best Bengali poems. I want to make a little chapbook for him as a gift before I go, and at the same time the exercise is a great for expanding my Bengali vocabulary and bringing poetry back into my life.
I want to post just one short poem to give you a taste of the project. As more good poems emerge, I'm sure I'll want to post them as well. But for now, please enjoy "Jah!"
First, in Bangla:
Then, in English:
Jah!
The foot of my dream slipped
Off the cornice and broke;
Serves it right.
How often it had rushed
To some paradise in the sky,
Ignoring my warnings and disturbing me
In quiet moments at work.
For the femur in pieces:
Two operations.
For the nagging pain:
Four months’ bedrest.
Finish all this, dream--
And then will you go again?
There’s a dustbin for you in the attic.
Note: a "cornice" is a huge concrete shelf found jutting out from a wall, about two feet from the ceiling, in many homes here. I have a feeling that the Bengalified version of this English word (karnish) is used more frequently than the original English. I had never heard it before arriving here.
Let me know what you think about the poem. It's not too late to make translation changes, so break out your notebooks, Bengali readers. As for me, I've had fun thinking about the idea of disobediently ambitious dreams/fantasies, and how best to deal with them. Does it serve them right when they fall and break? How many such dreams do all of us have in our hearts' attics? Great poem, great questions, great work Moti.
An embarrassing photo of Moti modeling a costume from a play he wrote for our schoolchildren to perform.
I want to post just one short poem to give you a taste of the project. As more good poems emerge, I'm sure I'll want to post them as well. But for now, please enjoy "Jah!"
First, in Bangla:
Then, in English:
Jah!
The foot of my dream slipped
Off the cornice and broke;
Serves it right.
How often it had rushed
To some paradise in the sky,
Ignoring my warnings and disturbing me
In quiet moments at work.
For the femur in pieces:
Two operations.
For the nagging pain:
Four months’ bedrest.
Finish all this, dream--
And then will you go again?
There’s a dustbin for you in the attic.
Note: a "cornice" is a huge concrete shelf found jutting out from a wall, about two feet from the ceiling, in many homes here. I have a feeling that the Bengalified version of this English word (karnish) is used more frequently than the original English. I had never heard it before arriving here.
Let me know what you think about the poem. It's not too late to make translation changes, so break out your notebooks, Bengali readers. As for me, I've had fun thinking about the idea of disobediently ambitious dreams/fantasies, and how best to deal with them. Does it serve them right when they fall and break? How many such dreams do all of us have in our hearts' attics? Great poem, great questions, great work Moti.
An embarrassing photo of Moti modeling a costume from a play he wrote for our schoolchildren to perform.4.13.2008
Ashesh Dhonnobad
Given my sparse internet time, I have no other way than this puny blog to express my overwhelming THANKS to everyone who called, wrote, emailed, facebooked, or otherwise buzzed me to wish me a happy birthday. Ashesh dhonnobad - endless thanks - to you all.
You all helped to make this birthday, which was clouded by some (hmm... how to put this) political village discomfort, nevertheless extremely warm and memorable for me. It really means a lot to me, especially given how undeserving I am of the treatment (I am horrendous about remembering birthdays).
Joto tara aache gogone,
toto dhonnobad aamar mone.
There. A cheesy impromptu Bangla couplet for you, and it even rhymes! (It means "there are as many 'thank yous' in my heart as there are stars in the sky," but it sounds a bit prettier).
Thank you, seriously.
Brian
P.S. Check out the Fueled by Rice blog posts about visiting Katna:
You all helped to make this birthday, which was clouded by some (hmm... how to put this) political village discomfort, nevertheless extremely warm and memorable for me. It really means a lot to me, especially given how undeserving I am of the treatment (I am horrendous about remembering birthdays).
Joto tara aache gogone,
toto dhonnobad aamar mone.
There. A cheesy impromptu Bangla couplet for you, and it even rhymes! (It means "there are as many 'thank yous' in my heart as there are stars in the sky," but it sounds a bit prettier).
Thank you, seriously.
Brian
P.S. Check out the Fueled by Rice blog posts about visiting Katna:
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