So Prashant won, of course. After the power went out, my host sister started making frantic phone calls to neighbors and relatives, while the rest of us ran outside, listening for the telltale sounds of celebration. About twenty minutes later the fireworks started and the phone calls came, and siblings squealed with glee. I stayed and watched for a while, but eventually I went to bed, lulled to sleep by the sounds of distant singing.
The next day was a holiday. Even our program took a day off, though most other schools took four. I went to the bazaar to watch the celebrations. So many people were in Kalimpong that day, with thousands crowding into the Mela Grounds for a huge program. From the bleachers I could see the whole thing: mostly students, clumped together by their school uniforms. There were bursts of singing, and an arrhythmic clamor of drums and cymbals. Occasionally there would be a loud crack as kids tossed M80s into the air or scattered crowds with larger fireworks. No one seemed to mind, and slowly the air was permeated by the smell of gunpowder.
The crowd in the Mela Grounds gradually spun out into a procession that took over the streets and ran through the whole town. Everyone seemed to be singing and chanting and waving banners. But not just for Prashant. Sure, his face was still there amidst the flags, and here and there rowdy groups would shout his name. But it was nothing like the parades of support before the finale. Most of the songs were Nepali songs, most of the chants were chants of Gorkha pride.
There is a very different mood now that Prashant has won. All the talk has suddenly turned to bigger matters, and one specific idea that has faded in and out of Nepali consciousness for decades is again resurfacing: Gorkhaland. For a long time the Darjeeling District has felt alienated and neglected by the Hindi and Bengali speakers on the plains. Development programs initiated at the state level from Kolkata just don't seem to make it up to the hills. But the bureaucratic desire and ethno-psychological need of the Gorkhas for their own autonomous state in All India is one that has thus far been ignored by the rest of the country.
Somehow, however, the Prashant's run for Indian Idol became inextricably linked, either consciously or subconsciously, to the idea of Nepali vindication and of Gorkhaland. Everyone seems to think that, now that Prashant is Indian Idol, full statehood for Darjeeling is more possible than ever. This sort of talk is new to us, and so far we've been incredulous. But there is an energy to Kalimpong these days and a strange belief that one just naturally follows the other. "Do you really think," Tanya's sister says, surprised, "that we would spend so much money and time for a person? We only did it because it means we get Gorkhaland."
The reasoning seems to be along these lines: a) if Prashant wins, it will show the rest of India that Gorkhas have talent, and b) if Nepalis can show the rest of India that they are numerous enough to dictate the results if a show like Indian Idol, they will no longer be ignored. And, so far, they aren't being ignored it all. You see, it isn't over.
On Tuesday, during the second, more relaxed day of celebrations, an FM radio DJ out of Delhi made a comment along the lines of "Now that the watchman has become an idol, who will do the job of watchman?" Due mostly to their stereotypical portrayal in Bollywood films, most plains Indians believe that Nepalis are all khukuri wielding thugs who mostly get jobs as watchman and security guards. This goes back a long time, to the British use of Gorkha army units to control protests during the Indian independence movement. And for a while, because of their reputation as fierce fighters, many Nepalis who moved down to Delhi or Bombay or Bangalore, far from the majestic Himalayan hills of Darjeeling, were able to find jobs mostly as police or private security guards. Not that this matters, however, compared to the meaning of the remark. It was a Don Imus sort of thing. Imagine a radio DJ in the states saying "If we let the Mexicans get uppity, who is going to be our maids?" That's how the Nepalis took it.
The next day the whole district held a strike, and people came out for a proper protest. I wasn't there, but everyone said it was pretty big. They even burnt an effigy. The DJ claimed that his comments were misinterpreted, and apologized.
The strike was over the next day, but plenty of people were still pretty upset and continued to protest throughout the region. Then last night we started to hear rumors of violence erupting in nearby Siliguri. Nepali protesters attacked by vicious Bengali mob. Nepali protesters attacked by police. Army called in. Curfew in place. Nepalis being run out of town or forced into hiding. Four dead. Dozens dead. Five hundred dead.
This morning the newspapers give conflicting accounts. Still, things seem to be pretty bad. My host mother's oldest son lives in Siliguri attending flight school, and she has been on and off the phone with him all morning. Last we heard the violence had stopped, but the curfew was still in place. She tries to hide it, but I know she is scared.
There is something incredibly surreal and postmodern about all this. It is so strange to think that it all started with a reality TV show, a talent contest. But then, that wasn't really where it started, was it? The roots of this run deep within the basic cultural divide between people in the hills and people in the plains.
And what does Prashant, the boy from Darjeeling, say? He urges people to end the violence, saying that it will spoil the moment. He is worried that such agitation will distract him from his work on his new album, will break his concentration. There was a time when Gorkhas hung on their hero's every word, but now he seems hopelessly naive. After all, this was never really about him. It has always been about bigger things, more important things than singers, or remarks about security guards.
There is so much tension in Kalimpong today. There is a sense that something has started. No one seems to know if the end will be a successful bid for Gorkhaland or a replay of the violence from twenty years ago. Whatever really happened in Siliguri, things are happening now. I can't shake this feeling, and I can't help but suspect that the TV show's grand finale was really just the beginning.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Monday, September 24, 2007
Grande Finale
All week it's been building. The signs everywhere, the dozens of free voting booths manned all day, the constant discussion and speculation. Now and then off in the distance you'd hear loudspeaker snippets of him singing, and a couple times at night I was woken by the unsettlingly near chantings of some faceless mob: "Prashant! Prashant! Prashant!"
Prashant Tamang, the kid from the hills, made it into the top two, along with his best friend Amit Paul, and Darjeeling went ecstatic. This time, however, the voting period was not a mere 24 hours but a whole week, transforming a weekly ritual into a movement of obsessive fervor. "How many times have you voted?" became a hungry addition to the standard daily chitchat, or, more often, "how many hours did you put in?" And yes, they do mean hours. People talked about the kid at school who voted a thousand times or the police officer who took the whole day off to vote. There are whispered rumors of a man in Sikkim who voted 100,000 times. Money poured in from Darjeeling and Sikkim, from Nepal, and even, we've heard, from Nepalis living abroad in the United States and UK. Kalimpong's local goverment, along with the rest of the city, made Prashant's victory their top priority, cutting money from schools and delaying employee's paychecks. "Indian Idol sakiepachi, sabai manche Darjeelingmaa garib hunuhuncha," my host sister joked: when Indian Idol is over, everyone in Darjeeling will be poor.
Practically everyone has voted dozens of times, and some wealthy citizens have donated tens of thousands of rupees towards the cause. How often or for how long has became, for one week, a major factor in one's social standing. No one seems to care that there will be no return on this huge investment, that the money being spent could go to school art programs, to repairing decimated roads, or to improving the economic standing of the Gorkhas. No one seems to mind that a win will do little to change the disadvantaged position of hills in within the tangled Indian polity. For them, Prashant's victory is a goal in and of itself: to have a Nepali be the face of Indian Idol.
In nearby Assam, Amit Paul's territory, the excitement was said to be just as big. We heard stories of Nepali speakers being turned away from voting booths and polling stations. Here in Kalimpong, they will let anyone vote, just so long as you vote for Prashant. There was a rumor about a girl going to a voting booth and voting for Amit a thousand times. When she was discovered, they dragged her into the street and hacked off her hair. This is a rare occurance, however. Amit supporters usually got away with simple beatings.
As the fervor built, I could feel some people start to get nervous. There was a sort of threat to it, a possibility of violence lying just beneath the surface. What would happen, a few of us wondered, if Prashant lost? My host sister claimed that Kalimpong and Darjeeling would riot, and I was inclined to agree. Others claimed that people would just forget about it, tuck their tails between their legs and go on like it never happened. Coming home on Saturday two teenagers stopped me on the path. "Have you voted for Prashant? Where? How many times?" "Twenty times in the bazaar," I replied. A lie. I gripped my umbrella tighter, holding it like a club. There was a sort of fanaticism to these kids. I could tell they had been wandering around for a while, making sure every passerby had done their part, looking for enemies and nonbelievers.
Finally the big day came. Yesterday the voting closed at six o'clock, and from then on the evening was punctuated by the occasional bang-crackle of distant fireworks. When I came downstairs at nine, our living room was packed with neighbors. The grand finale was being broadcast live from Delhi, from a huge stage and arena that had been built just for the occasion. Prashant and Amit came out in traditional and expensive looking robes. The production values were pretty impressive: every performance included elaborately costumed backup dancers, stunning lights, and pyrotechnics. First Amit and Prashant sang, and then throughout the evening a wide array of solo and group acts including: all the other finalists, in varying combinations, Hindi pop stars, the previous two Indian Idols, and two of the judges (I thought Alishia Chinai and her solid metal bust-lifting corset stole the show). I'm not usually into these sorts of things, but I couldn't help but be entertained. We were all anxious to find out who would win, but each performance seemed to be bigger than the last. It seemed to be building, both in suspense and in the feeling of just how huge a phenomenon this actually was. One hour went by, then two. Who would they bring out next? How long would it go? Probably till midnight, we all said. Another forty-five minutes. We could tell it was close.
And then the power went out.
Prashant Tamang, the kid from the hills, made it into the top two, along with his best friend Amit Paul, and Darjeeling went ecstatic. This time, however, the voting period was not a mere 24 hours but a whole week, transforming a weekly ritual into a movement of obsessive fervor. "How many times have you voted?" became a hungry addition to the standard daily chitchat, or, more often, "how many hours did you put in?" And yes, they do mean hours. People talked about the kid at school who voted a thousand times or the police officer who took the whole day off to vote. There are whispered rumors of a man in Sikkim who voted 100,000 times. Money poured in from Darjeeling and Sikkim, from Nepal, and even, we've heard, from Nepalis living abroad in the United States and UK. Kalimpong's local goverment, along with the rest of the city, made Prashant's victory their top priority, cutting money from schools and delaying employee's paychecks. "Indian Idol sakiepachi, sabai manche Darjeelingmaa garib hunuhuncha," my host sister joked: when Indian Idol is over, everyone in Darjeeling will be poor.
Practically everyone has voted dozens of times, and some wealthy citizens have donated tens of thousands of rupees towards the cause. How often or for how long has became, for one week, a major factor in one's social standing. No one seems to care that there will be no return on this huge investment, that the money being spent could go to school art programs, to repairing decimated roads, or to improving the economic standing of the Gorkhas. No one seems to mind that a win will do little to change the disadvantaged position of hills in within the tangled Indian polity. For them, Prashant's victory is a goal in and of itself: to have a Nepali be the face of Indian Idol.
In nearby Assam, Amit Paul's territory, the excitement was said to be just as big. We heard stories of Nepali speakers being turned away from voting booths and polling stations. Here in Kalimpong, they will let anyone vote, just so long as you vote for Prashant. There was a rumor about a girl going to a voting booth and voting for Amit a thousand times. When she was discovered, they dragged her into the street and hacked off her hair. This is a rare occurance, however. Amit supporters usually got away with simple beatings.
As the fervor built, I could feel some people start to get nervous. There was a sort of threat to it, a possibility of violence lying just beneath the surface. What would happen, a few of us wondered, if Prashant lost? My host sister claimed that Kalimpong and Darjeeling would riot, and I was inclined to agree. Others claimed that people would just forget about it, tuck their tails between their legs and go on like it never happened. Coming home on Saturday two teenagers stopped me on the path. "Have you voted for Prashant? Where? How many times?" "Twenty times in the bazaar," I replied. A lie. I gripped my umbrella tighter, holding it like a club. There was a sort of fanaticism to these kids. I could tell they had been wandering around for a while, making sure every passerby had done their part, looking for enemies and nonbelievers.
Finally the big day came. Yesterday the voting closed at six o'clock, and from then on the evening was punctuated by the occasional bang-crackle of distant fireworks. When I came downstairs at nine, our living room was packed with neighbors. The grand finale was being broadcast live from Delhi, from a huge stage and arena that had been built just for the occasion. Prashant and Amit came out in traditional and expensive looking robes. The production values were pretty impressive: every performance included elaborately costumed backup dancers, stunning lights, and pyrotechnics. First Amit and Prashant sang, and then throughout the evening a wide array of solo and group acts including: all the other finalists, in varying combinations, Hindi pop stars, the previous two Indian Idols, and two of the judges (I thought Alishia Chinai and her solid metal bust-lifting corset stole the show). I'm not usually into these sorts of things, but I couldn't help but be entertained. We were all anxious to find out who would win, but each performance seemed to be bigger than the last. It seemed to be building, both in suspense and in the feeling of just how huge a phenomenon this actually was. One hour went by, then two. Who would they bring out next? How long would it go? Probably till midnight, we all said. Another forty-five minutes. We could tell it was close.
And then the power went out.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Friction
You learn so much from walking on mountains. Just little things, like how rocks look when they are slippery or what kinds of soil are likely to give. In Manhattan I can just swing my legs forward and, if it's night and I know or don't care where I'm going, let my thoughts slip into somewhere far away and nonexistent. Here on the hills, it is completely different. Walking, more than anything else, becomes an act of concentration. Every step has to be considered and calculated, at least half consciously, because every step is different, every patch of ground unique. It trains your eyes and feet and balance, gives your legs a sort of precision to their swing and kick. And, if walk the mountain long enough, I expect you come to know the path, feel the softness of the dirt and the shape of the stones in your muscle memory. Then, perhaps, the mountain lets you look away, frees you to think of other things. But not before, and not for a while. The mountain takes some learning too.
Every day I make the long trudge straight up the hill to the program house, next to and over streams, up tall makeshift steps, and along the narrow winding paths that cut through rice paddies and backyards. If it is sunny out, or if I'm in a hurry, I'll arrive soaked through with sweat. If it is raining hard, or if it rained last night, the stream will be too deep to cross without soaking my shoes and pants, so I'll go on a bit further up the path and leap--literally leap!--from boulder to boulder, like Mario or Indiana Jones.
Little girls giggle and namaste as they pass me on their way to school. Some days they'll hold up their hands like a camera or pinch their fingers to their ears, and if I've got my iPod on I'll take our my earbuds and let them listen for a few seconds. They giggle some more, and their friends will run up to ask what I'm listening to. The first time this happened I had on Public Enemy, and the tiny girl, half my height, turned to her companion and made crude gangster-y motions with her hands. Everyday since then that girl has stopped me and done her little hip-hop dance, endlessly chanting "waka-waka-waka-waka!"
Going down is easier, but takes just as much concentration. Friction is the key. I find myself remembering high school physics classes and wondering at the wisdom of the body, to be able to calculate so quickly and so accurately the coefficients of every rock and tuft of grass and mud puddle. At night or, worse, at dusk this becomes infinitely more difficult. In the dark I can't distinguish textures, and my depth perception becomes a mere suggestion. When I leave early, however, and walk home on my own, I try to go fast, and suddenly it all becomes a game. How much easier it feels when I don't try to stop and secure my balance, but let my momentum fly me forward and down, hopping from stone to stone, so light on my feet. And, thinking about those physics classes, I realize that it really is easier. If I'm constantly moving forward, I tend to put less weight down on sloping surfaces, and am thus less likely to slip. I can make better use of the friction when I don't cling to the apparent comfort of careful balance and slow steps.
This isn't a "and that's a lot like traveling" post. You can decipher your own meanings and metaphors. Suffice to say, a certain momentum can useful, if you are willing to sacrifice a bit of feeling grounded.
Sometimes though it is best to stop. Not just for balance and breath, however, but to stare at the textured greens and browns of the mountains across the valley and the complex fractal curves of the white billowed clouds. These are times I can't help but laugh, grunt that maniacal chuckle that comes from low in the stomach and deep in the soul. What wonders lie beyond those peaks? What kingdoms must be hidden in those clouds? The mountains have so much to teach us, and the skies, I think, even more. All we need to climb them is a little balance and determination, and perhaps a little friction.
Every day I make the long trudge straight up the hill to the program house, next to and over streams, up tall makeshift steps, and along the narrow winding paths that cut through rice paddies and backyards. If it is sunny out, or if I'm in a hurry, I'll arrive soaked through with sweat. If it is raining hard, or if it rained last night, the stream will be too deep to cross without soaking my shoes and pants, so I'll go on a bit further up the path and leap--literally leap!--from boulder to boulder, like Mario or Indiana Jones.
Little girls giggle and namaste as they pass me on their way to school. Some days they'll hold up their hands like a camera or pinch their fingers to their ears, and if I've got my iPod on I'll take our my earbuds and let them listen for a few seconds. They giggle some more, and their friends will run up to ask what I'm listening to. The first time this happened I had on Public Enemy, and the tiny girl, half my height, turned to her companion and made crude gangster-y motions with her hands. Everyday since then that girl has stopped me and done her little hip-hop dance, endlessly chanting "waka-waka-waka-waka!"
Going down is easier, but takes just as much concentration. Friction is the key. I find myself remembering high school physics classes and wondering at the wisdom of the body, to be able to calculate so quickly and so accurately the coefficients of every rock and tuft of grass and mud puddle. At night or, worse, at dusk this becomes infinitely more difficult. In the dark I can't distinguish textures, and my depth perception becomes a mere suggestion. When I leave early, however, and walk home on my own, I try to go fast, and suddenly it all becomes a game. How much easier it feels when I don't try to stop and secure my balance, but let my momentum fly me forward and down, hopping from stone to stone, so light on my feet. And, thinking about those physics classes, I realize that it really is easier. If I'm constantly moving forward, I tend to put less weight down on sloping surfaces, and am thus less likely to slip. I can make better use of the friction when I don't cling to the apparent comfort of careful balance and slow steps.
This isn't a "and that's a lot like traveling" post. You can decipher your own meanings and metaphors. Suffice to say, a certain momentum can useful, if you are willing to sacrifice a bit of feeling grounded.
Sometimes though it is best to stop. Not just for balance and breath, however, but to stare at the textured greens and browns of the mountains across the valley and the complex fractal curves of the white billowed clouds. These are times I can't help but laugh, grunt that maniacal chuckle that comes from low in the stomach and deep in the soul. What wonders lie beyond those peaks? What kingdoms must be hidden in those clouds? The mountains have so much to teach us, and the skies, I think, even more. All we need to climb them is a little balance and determination, and perhaps a little friction.
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Trash
Butterflies flit and dip around dew-traced spiderwebs. I can feel the light, filtered through the high trees, warming a pattern on my cheek. Nearby my host brother smiles silently as he tosses pieces of dirty styrofoam into the stream and watches them bob and dance.
My baabaa had asked me to help him repair a section of the path that had been washed away in last week's heavy rains, but I find myself transfixed by all the trash. Plastic bags, old clothes, odd pieces of rubber, and the occasional broken sole of a single flipflop--it clings to rocks and cakes its way into the mud. I pass by this stream every day, but only now have I really stopped to study it. Ganess eventually finds two intact (but burnt out) light bulbs, and when be break for tea we sit and toss them repeatedly into the water and race their twisty, backtracking progress for a few yards before snatching them up again.
When work resumes it quickly becomes clear that my host father is planning to use some of the trash as a sort of makeshift mortar to fill up the gaps in our shaky stone path. Reluctantly I help them peel away the layers of matted garbage and toss it, with shovelfuls of dirt, into the hole. The rest we just let float downstream. I feel like I should say something, or do something, but I can't. I'm just one person, and even if I cleaned it all there isn't any better form of solid waste management in Kalimpong. So, I just let it go, watch the water carry it out of sight, if not out of mind.
The streets of Kalimpong are lined with bands of glittering color: wrappers mostly, from candy or gum or little packets of shampoo. When kids stop at the dokans for cookies or mints after school, they immediately tare open the plastic and toss it aside. The concept of "trash" simply hasn't entered most people's awareness here. Hill people in the region have always just let their waste roll down the hill, in streams or with the wind and rain. It goes down the mountain and into the Teesta, which carries it away to pile up and decompose elsewhere, far from the beautiful Himalayan views that have defined the world here for centuries.
This might have even worked for a while, long ago, but not anymore. India never had what you could call a wrapper-culture until recently. It is only in the past couple decades that things have come individually wrapped in plastic, or that Indians or Nepalis have started consuming so many things mass-manufactured outside of their own home or village. If you roll these things down the hill, or toss them in a stream, they don't go away or decompose--they just stay there, waiting to be dealt with by someone else. But even just getting their waste down the hill is far enough for most Nepalis to stop caring, so the trash remains, coloring roadsides and riverbanks in a sickly brownish collage.
Darjeeling Town isn't much better, but at least they are trying. "Clean Darjeeling" programs have been off and on since the 70's. Every year since '96 a different group takes up the city's anti-plastic campaign. This year it is the police department, and all over town, in shops and on the streets, clever signs display slogans like "Plastic kills, don't litter our hills." They've also put out large bins at a few major intersections, which are emptied when someone gets a chance, but even this isn't a solution. The infrastructure to dispose of solid waste effectively simply doesn't exist here--India doesn't have many landfills or incineration centers, and certainly none near Darjeeling--and attempts to develop it inevitably get caught up in the tangle of short-sightedness and corruption that defines modern politics in India.
Composting offers a better solution. 70-80% of solid waste in Darjeeling is still decomposable. Unfortunately, few people have any understanding about the need to separate organics from plastics and biomedical waste. Plenty of people burn trash, but with little awareness of the health affects; asthma rates in Darjeeling have skyrocketed.
A couple of cities have tried to develop in this area, but most attempts have been myopic at best. One city spent several hundred thousand on a "composting machine"--essentially a barrel that turns occasionally. This seems much more concrete to politicians than actually trying to change people's habits and awareness.
One city managed it, however. Down the river from Darjeeling, where all the trash from the hills piles up, there was an outbreak of disease some years back: plague, black death, something new--no one seems to know what it was. But it killed plenty until the city dealt with its trash and muck--and that of other people. Now the town is spotless, and its citizens have developed an environmental awareness unknown in most of India.
In my room I've been keeping a trash bag of the wrappers from all the candies and biscuits that I've let myself indulge in. After a month, however, it is getting full, and last night I could swear I heard something rustling in it. I've been dreading dealing with this thing, but I can feel the time coming soon. I could toss it in my family's dust bin, which I think gets emptied into the river, or take it to the trash pile at the program house, which gets burned. This isn't a very good choice, but it seems to be the only one I have.
I'll find a way though, and then I'll come back to America and take refuge in the apparently clarity of distance. Problems like these seem so simple from afar. They aren't simple, though, and I don't want to just move on. But I'll come back and preach a little, and eventually the problem will get swept from my thoughts, like that styrofoam bobbing in the stream. Out of sight, out of mind.
My baabaa had asked me to help him repair a section of the path that had been washed away in last week's heavy rains, but I find myself transfixed by all the trash. Plastic bags, old clothes, odd pieces of rubber, and the occasional broken sole of a single flipflop--it clings to rocks and cakes its way into the mud. I pass by this stream every day, but only now have I really stopped to study it. Ganess eventually finds two intact (but burnt out) light bulbs, and when be break for tea we sit and toss them repeatedly into the water and race their twisty, backtracking progress for a few yards before snatching them up again.
When work resumes it quickly becomes clear that my host father is planning to use some of the trash as a sort of makeshift mortar to fill up the gaps in our shaky stone path. Reluctantly I help them peel away the layers of matted garbage and toss it, with shovelfuls of dirt, into the hole. The rest we just let float downstream. I feel like I should say something, or do something, but I can't. I'm just one person, and even if I cleaned it all there isn't any better form of solid waste management in Kalimpong. So, I just let it go, watch the water carry it out of sight, if not out of mind.
The streets of Kalimpong are lined with bands of glittering color: wrappers mostly, from candy or gum or little packets of shampoo. When kids stop at the dokans for cookies or mints after school, they immediately tare open the plastic and toss it aside. The concept of "trash" simply hasn't entered most people's awareness here. Hill people in the region have always just let their waste roll down the hill, in streams or with the wind and rain. It goes down the mountain and into the Teesta, which carries it away to pile up and decompose elsewhere, far from the beautiful Himalayan views that have defined the world here for centuries.
This might have even worked for a while, long ago, but not anymore. India never had what you could call a wrapper-culture until recently. It is only in the past couple decades that things have come individually wrapped in plastic, or that Indians or Nepalis have started consuming so many things mass-manufactured outside of their own home or village. If you roll these things down the hill, or toss them in a stream, they don't go away or decompose--they just stay there, waiting to be dealt with by someone else. But even just getting their waste down the hill is far enough for most Nepalis to stop caring, so the trash remains, coloring roadsides and riverbanks in a sickly brownish collage.
Darjeeling Town isn't much better, but at least they are trying. "Clean Darjeeling" programs have been off and on since the 70's. Every year since '96 a different group takes up the city's anti-plastic campaign. This year it is the police department, and all over town, in shops and on the streets, clever signs display slogans like "Plastic kills, don't litter our hills." They've also put out large bins at a few major intersections, which are emptied when someone gets a chance, but even this isn't a solution. The infrastructure to dispose of solid waste effectively simply doesn't exist here--India doesn't have many landfills or incineration centers, and certainly none near Darjeeling--and attempts to develop it inevitably get caught up in the tangle of short-sightedness and corruption that defines modern politics in India.
Composting offers a better solution. 70-80% of solid waste in Darjeeling is still decomposable. Unfortunately, few people have any understanding about the need to separate organics from plastics and biomedical waste. Plenty of people burn trash, but with little awareness of the health affects; asthma rates in Darjeeling have skyrocketed.
A couple of cities have tried to develop in this area, but most attempts have been myopic at best. One city spent several hundred thousand on a "composting machine"--essentially a barrel that turns occasionally. This seems much more concrete to politicians than actually trying to change people's habits and awareness.
One city managed it, however. Down the river from Darjeeling, where all the trash from the hills piles up, there was an outbreak of disease some years back: plague, black death, something new--no one seems to know what it was. But it killed plenty until the city dealt with its trash and muck--and that of other people. Now the town is spotless, and its citizens have developed an environmental awareness unknown in most of India.
In my room I've been keeping a trash bag of the wrappers from all the candies and biscuits that I've let myself indulge in. After a month, however, it is getting full, and last night I could swear I heard something rustling in it. I've been dreading dealing with this thing, but I can feel the time coming soon. I could toss it in my family's dust bin, which I think gets emptied into the river, or take it to the trash pile at the program house, which gets burned. This isn't a very good choice, but it seems to be the only one I have.
I'll find a way though, and then I'll come back to America and take refuge in the apparently clarity of distance. Problems like these seem so simple from afar. They aren't simple, though, and I don't want to just move on. But I'll come back and preach a little, and eventually the problem will get swept from my thoughts, like that styrofoam bobbing in the stream. Out of sight, out of mind.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Dhanyabad, Namaste, Bling
We had been looking for the monastery for about an hour. It was, were were sure, "somewhere around here," since we had seen it a couple times coming in and out of Darjeeling by jeep. We were pretty convinced that we were on the right road, but it was difficult to judge the distances originally seen from a car now that we were on foot. Still, it couldn't been much further, could it?
We started asking people at random. "Thulo gumba kahaa chaa?" One shopkeeper pointed us down a set of steep winding steps just a few yards away. "Dhanyabad," we said. "Huncha," the man replied after a pause. As we walked away he watched us, slightly disapproving, slightly perplexed.
Ansel and I obediently tromped down the stone stairs, past a surprisingly spacious tailoring shop, an old woman putting our laundry, a little girl and a midnight black dog. We peered around on tiptoe, trying to spot the big red roof of the monastery. Ansel said he thought he could see it and waved at a vaguely Chinese looking building a little ways in the distance. That wasn't it, of course, but it renewed our hopes anyways. Further down the steps, I stumbled upon the outdoor shower area of several scrawny, sad eyed boys. One wore a shirt that said "Drugs Kill - Sid Vicious." Another had "My body is a temple: I worship food." I poked my head into a doorway at random and discovered what a neatly painted sign named the "Buddhist Mission Boys Home." This must have been what the shopkeeper thought we meant by "monastery." We returned to the road.
We stopped and asked a group of men playing Parcheesi. They didn't know. We nodded and, saying nothing, walked away, awkwardly.
We first entered the program house meeting room a little over a month ago. Doors, windows, chairs, etc. were all labeled, and, since this is where we take some of our meals, the walls were also posted with terms meaning "please give a little" or "please give more." There was also a list of useful phrases: "speak slowly," "what's up?" "how are you?"
And there was the word "dhanyabad," which the poster translated as "thank you." We picked up on the word immediately, using it to thank the kitchen staff, shop vendors, people we talked to on the street, everyone. We used it, essentially, like "thank you."
This was not correct. After about a week Tanya got us all together and explained our error. Apparently "dhanyabad" didn't so much mean "thank you" as "I am deeply in your debt." Oops.
Among the various stereotypes about westerners that people have in India and Nepal, there is the perception that American "thank you"s are "cheap." In America, the norm is to thank everyone for everything, even when they have done little or nothing to warrant your gratitude. To Nepalis, this sort of overuse drains the word of meaning. Much like humor, courtesy doesn't translate.
Until coming to India, I never realized what how strong a compulsion our western courtesies are, or how integral they are to making encounters go smoothly. I still feel awkward parting after small purchases or quick requests for directions. The fact that Nepali also lacks a distinct word for "goodbye" doesn't help much either. The people of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, however, they just tilt their heads in the expressionless Indian side-nod, and watch you as you leave.
I haven't gotten used to the stares, either. Staring simply isn't taboo here. If asked about it, people get confused. "What? I'm just looking." Still, years of growing up under different sets of courtesies has programmed me to get nervous or upset as people's eyes follow me everywhere. "Am I doing something wrong?" I wonder to myself, and then "What the fuck are they looking at?" I grit my teeth and walk on, eyes determinedly forward in the best American fashion, trying to look like it is completely natural for me to be here.
These differences illuminate some subtle facets of Nepali culture. Often times people will stare, grim and expressionless, until I get close enough and decide to "namaste," a greeting meaning "I bow to the divinity in you." "Namaste," like "dhanyabad," is not meant to be thrown around lightly, however. It is meant to be saved for initiating the sorts of interaction that speckle Nepali social lives--stopping to chat on the road, or being invited in for tea. Still, I find myself using it when only passing, just to see the person's face break into a relaxed smile.
The blank looks I get when passing have a reason, though. "Namaste" is always performed first by the party of lower status. Status, usually dictated by age, penetrates every aspect of Nepali culture. Even in the language itself pronouns do not distinguish between gender, but always distinguish between status. If you namaste a child, or address them without the diminutive form of "you," they'll burst into giggles at the jokes of the funny westerner. If you fail to namaste someone older, they'll just stare at you stonily.
These are some of the most deeply ingrained elements of Gorkha society. Things are changing though. Having acknowledged that western "thank you"s are cheap, many people have started using the English term for just such cheap occasions as thanking a shopkeeper or waiter. The same with "sorry," since the closest Nepali has is a term meaning "excuse me." I wonder, however, where it is all heading. English words and western courtesies are being appropriated to fill in the gaps in languages and cultures all over the world. This isn't an accident, but the direct effect of the prevalence of English television and media. The more media we are exposed to, the more we base our understanding of norms of behavior on what they display--despite the fact that even non-fiction television and movies are inevitably an imperfect and distorted depiction of reality.
But I'm not sure it is a bad thing, at least not the courtesies. There is a distinct sense of alienation and "otherness" that comes with encountering a different set courtesies that one doesn't understand, and it is these feelings that, in my opinion, make it so hard to feel connected to people from other cultures and parts of the world. Building that much more common ground, even if it is western dominated common ground, could do a lot to create the sort of species/planet awareness that is so necessary to solving the basic conflicts of the human race. It is easier not to care about someone you've never met, someone completely different, someone who would stare at you as you walk by. But if "please" and "sorry" and "thank you" are shared worldwide, that makes us just a little less different, a little more connected.
There is an argument here for promoting English-dominance, globalization, and monoculture. And you know, there's a sort of appeal to the idea that I could walk into a Starbucks or a Burger King anywhere in the world and always know what to do, what to order--to never feel awkward or out of place.
But then I think of those kids at the Buddhist Boys Home, with their ironic t-shirts, and of businessmen I pass with Britney Spears ringtones. And of "Bling," the first hip-hop themed party in Darjeeling and a fundraiser for the suspiciously vague cause of "the environment." It was a sad affair of fights and drinking and bad dancing. What was most unsettling, though, was that many of these kids were clearly idolizing a culture they didn't fully understand. Just like kids in America who fall in love with anything and everything Japanese or "Asian," they lack the clear understanding of what in our culture is cliche, kitschy, ironic, retro, or otherwise not taken seriously. For us, the name "Bling" was hilarious, but for the Nepalis of Darjeeling it was completely serious. This is the real danger of monoculture and globalization: what if the process of homogenizing doesn't just destroy non-dominate cultures and customs, but produces a final product too bland and cartoonified to tolerate?
Culture is too huge and entwined and self-referencing to understand completely, or to export accurately. One way or another, however, it is all heading somewhere. I can see it in the kids of Kalimpong, their thugged out dress, posters of Avril Lavigne, and love of English. Can they possibly be expected to want the same sort of life lived by their parents, and their grandparents, going back generations? With everything they've seen, can we expect them not to have ambitions? But when they grow up, will our civilization be able to support them and give them escape from farming and shopkeeping and the simple life in the hills? The somewhere that we are all heading is too ephemeral and blurry with possibilities to pin down. Still, it can't be much further, can it?
We started asking people at random. "Thulo gumba kahaa chaa?" One shopkeeper pointed us down a set of steep winding steps just a few yards away. "Dhanyabad," we said. "Huncha," the man replied after a pause. As we walked away he watched us, slightly disapproving, slightly perplexed.
Ansel and I obediently tromped down the stone stairs, past a surprisingly spacious tailoring shop, an old woman putting our laundry, a little girl and a midnight black dog. We peered around on tiptoe, trying to spot the big red roof of the monastery. Ansel said he thought he could see it and waved at a vaguely Chinese looking building a little ways in the distance. That wasn't it, of course, but it renewed our hopes anyways. Further down the steps, I stumbled upon the outdoor shower area of several scrawny, sad eyed boys. One wore a shirt that said "Drugs Kill - Sid Vicious." Another had "My body is a temple: I worship food." I poked my head into a doorway at random and discovered what a neatly painted sign named the "Buddhist Mission Boys Home." This must have been what the shopkeeper thought we meant by "monastery." We returned to the road.
We stopped and asked a group of men playing Parcheesi. They didn't know. We nodded and, saying nothing, walked away, awkwardly.
We first entered the program house meeting room a little over a month ago. Doors, windows, chairs, etc. were all labeled, and, since this is where we take some of our meals, the walls were also posted with terms meaning "please give a little" or "please give more." There was also a list of useful phrases: "speak slowly," "what's up?" "how are you?"
And there was the word "dhanyabad," which the poster translated as "thank you." We picked up on the word immediately, using it to thank the kitchen staff, shop vendors, people we talked to on the street, everyone. We used it, essentially, like "thank you."
This was not correct. After about a week Tanya got us all together and explained our error. Apparently "dhanyabad" didn't so much mean "thank you" as "I am deeply in your debt." Oops.
Among the various stereotypes about westerners that people have in India and Nepal, there is the perception that American "thank you"s are "cheap." In America, the norm is to thank everyone for everything, even when they have done little or nothing to warrant your gratitude. To Nepalis, this sort of overuse drains the word of meaning. Much like humor, courtesy doesn't translate.
Until coming to India, I never realized what how strong a compulsion our western courtesies are, or how integral they are to making encounters go smoothly. I still feel awkward parting after small purchases or quick requests for directions. The fact that Nepali also lacks a distinct word for "goodbye" doesn't help much either. The people of Darjeeling and Kalimpong, however, they just tilt their heads in the expressionless Indian side-nod, and watch you as you leave.
I haven't gotten used to the stares, either. Staring simply isn't taboo here. If asked about it, people get confused. "What? I'm just looking." Still, years of growing up under different sets of courtesies has programmed me to get nervous or upset as people's eyes follow me everywhere. "Am I doing something wrong?" I wonder to myself, and then "What the fuck are they looking at?" I grit my teeth and walk on, eyes determinedly forward in the best American fashion, trying to look like it is completely natural for me to be here.
These differences illuminate some subtle facets of Nepali culture. Often times people will stare, grim and expressionless, until I get close enough and decide to "namaste," a greeting meaning "I bow to the divinity in you." "Namaste," like "dhanyabad," is not meant to be thrown around lightly, however. It is meant to be saved for initiating the sorts of interaction that speckle Nepali social lives--stopping to chat on the road, or being invited in for tea. Still, I find myself using it when only passing, just to see the person's face break into a relaxed smile.
The blank looks I get when passing have a reason, though. "Namaste" is always performed first by the party of lower status. Status, usually dictated by age, penetrates every aspect of Nepali culture. Even in the language itself pronouns do not distinguish between gender, but always distinguish between status. If you namaste a child, or address them without the diminutive form of "you," they'll burst into giggles at the jokes of the funny westerner. If you fail to namaste someone older, they'll just stare at you stonily.
These are some of the most deeply ingrained elements of Gorkha society. Things are changing though. Having acknowledged that western "thank you"s are cheap, many people have started using the English term for just such cheap occasions as thanking a shopkeeper or waiter. The same with "sorry," since the closest Nepali has is a term meaning "excuse me." I wonder, however, where it is all heading. English words and western courtesies are being appropriated to fill in the gaps in languages and cultures all over the world. This isn't an accident, but the direct effect of the prevalence of English television and media. The more media we are exposed to, the more we base our understanding of norms of behavior on what they display--despite the fact that even non-fiction television and movies are inevitably an imperfect and distorted depiction of reality.
But I'm not sure it is a bad thing, at least not the courtesies. There is a distinct sense of alienation and "otherness" that comes with encountering a different set courtesies that one doesn't understand, and it is these feelings that, in my opinion, make it so hard to feel connected to people from other cultures and parts of the world. Building that much more common ground, even if it is western dominated common ground, could do a lot to create the sort of species/planet awareness that is so necessary to solving the basic conflicts of the human race. It is easier not to care about someone you've never met, someone completely different, someone who would stare at you as you walk by. But if "please" and "sorry" and "thank you" are shared worldwide, that makes us just a little less different, a little more connected.
There is an argument here for promoting English-dominance, globalization, and monoculture. And you know, there's a sort of appeal to the idea that I could walk into a Starbucks or a Burger King anywhere in the world and always know what to do, what to order--to never feel awkward or out of place.
But then I think of those kids at the Buddhist Boys Home, with their ironic t-shirts, and of businessmen I pass with Britney Spears ringtones. And of "Bling," the first hip-hop themed party in Darjeeling and a fundraiser for the suspiciously vague cause of "the environment." It was a sad affair of fights and drinking and bad dancing. What was most unsettling, though, was that many of these kids were clearly idolizing a culture they didn't fully understand. Just like kids in America who fall in love with anything and everything Japanese or "Asian," they lack the clear understanding of what in our culture is cliche, kitschy, ironic, retro, or otherwise not taken seriously. For us, the name "Bling" was hilarious, but for the Nepalis of Darjeeling it was completely serious. This is the real danger of monoculture and globalization: what if the process of homogenizing doesn't just destroy non-dominate cultures and customs, but produces a final product too bland and cartoonified to tolerate?
Culture is too huge and entwined and self-referencing to understand completely, or to export accurately. One way or another, however, it is all heading somewhere. I can see it in the kids of Kalimpong, their thugged out dress, posters of Avril Lavigne, and love of English. Can they possibly be expected to want the same sort of life lived by their parents, and their grandparents, going back generations? With everything they've seen, can we expect them not to have ambitions? But when they grow up, will our civilization be able to support them and give them escape from farming and shopkeeping and the simple life in the hills? The somewhere that we are all heading is too ephemeral and blurry with possibilities to pin down. Still, it can't be much further, can it?
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Prashant
"You guys! Come on! He's here!" Grabbing my camera and stuffing my feat into my shoes, I dashed out of my hotel room. In the lobby I met Jess, Fiona, and Corrine. Some of the others had already gone, apparently, and I was pretty sure there was another group left behind us. We didn't bother to wait for anyone else, however, but just ran out of the hotel and fell into step with the rest of the people hurrying up towards Chowrasta. The excitement and adrenalin was contagious, and next thing we know we are sprinting--literally sprinting--up the road. Mob mentality prevailed. Follow the crowd, we thought whenever we reached a fork in the road, go where the people are going. This is the way it works in any city when such spontaneous spectacles arise, and at the moment it was clear that the collective Gorkha consciousness was exquisitely attuned to one particular event in Darjeeling. You see, Prashant had come to Thunder Town.
All around us along the way, Prashant stared and grinned creepily out at us from posters and banners plastered over the moss. The four of us managed to stick together, and in a few minutes found ourselves in the middle of the human mass crowding the square at Chowrasta. There was a stage at the top of the square, and all around we saw people hanging out of windows and sitting in trees. I looked around for the sign that Nhan and Springsong had been making, but I couldn't see them. The sign had said "America Votes for Prashant" in red, white, and blue letters. Above us small white rectangles fluttered in the breeze. At first glance I thought they were Tibetan prayer flags, but when I looked closer I saw they were of a more local sort of religion: flyers for Prashant. Now and then a spontaneous cheer would start up from somewhere in the crowd, and for a few seconds the whole mob would stand up on their tip toes and peer at the road by which we all somehow knew Prashant would arrive. Mostly though, we all just shuffled around, murmuring in anticipation. Waiting.
Not much happened when he actually came. The mob went wild. Officials on the stage presented him with flowers. Children in traditional garb danced in a circle with drums while Prashant shook a tambourine awkwardly. After a few minutes he sang a couple songs, his voice blaring out over a crackly sound system. Everyone cheered and shouted. He left. The crowd shuffled out.
Prashant is now in the top three, and I can feel the people daring to hope that he might win. This does not seem an extremely unreasonable assumption, since, as Springsong pointed out, blue marker in hand, he has never been in the "danger zone" of the two least popular contestants. I can only suspect that Indian Idol isn't nearly the sort of community obsession in the rest of India. Maybe the collective Gorkha identity will be enough to put their champion through into stardom, into popularity, into whatever.
The past few days the newspapers have been dominated by pictures of Prashant's visit. I can't help but want him to win, if only to see the spectacle in Kalimpong on his victory. I worry though. I worry that the Gorkhas' will ask too much of him if he wins, or that the vindication they will feel won't turn into expectations that he can't possibly meet. One way or another, having an Indian Idol from the hills region won't rectify the underlying political and cultural issues that make the Gorkhas feel so alienated and misunderstood by the rest of All India. In the end, he's just a singer, good but not great, nice but not especially charismatic. Up there on the stage he seemed a bit overwhelmed by all that has happened to him since getting on the show and making it this far, just a little bit shocked at the way he had been made into, well, an idol.
After all, idols are just statues, just images--no more powerful than the beliefs and hopes that people have for them. It's a sort of placebo religion that keeps people going and keeps them satisfied, but has no substance to support them when the giddiness fades. The problem is, this idol, for the moment, is making people feel happy and important, and I don't dare shatter this golden calf when I have no tablet stones to offer in its stead. I'm not even up the mountain. I'm not a prophet or a leader or a messiah. The Nepali diaspora and the Gorkha identity of alienation is a far larger issue that I can only begin to grasp. Mostly, I just catch glimpses of it, visible for a few minutes on the faces of a crowd sprinting towards Chowrasta, eager to see their hero.
All around us along the way, Prashant stared and grinned creepily out at us from posters and banners plastered over the moss. The four of us managed to stick together, and in a few minutes found ourselves in the middle of the human mass crowding the square at Chowrasta. There was a stage at the top of the square, and all around we saw people hanging out of windows and sitting in trees. I looked around for the sign that Nhan and Springsong had been making, but I couldn't see them. The sign had said "America Votes for Prashant" in red, white, and blue letters. Above us small white rectangles fluttered in the breeze. At first glance I thought they were Tibetan prayer flags, but when I looked closer I saw they were of a more local sort of religion: flyers for Prashant. Now and then a spontaneous cheer would start up from somewhere in the crowd, and for a few seconds the whole mob would stand up on their tip toes and peer at the road by which we all somehow knew Prashant would arrive. Mostly though, we all just shuffled around, murmuring in anticipation. Waiting.
Not much happened when he actually came. The mob went wild. Officials on the stage presented him with flowers. Children in traditional garb danced in a circle with drums while Prashant shook a tambourine awkwardly. After a few minutes he sang a couple songs, his voice blaring out over a crackly sound system. Everyone cheered and shouted. He left. The crowd shuffled out.
Prashant is now in the top three, and I can feel the people daring to hope that he might win. This does not seem an extremely unreasonable assumption, since, as Springsong pointed out, blue marker in hand, he has never been in the "danger zone" of the two least popular contestants. I can only suspect that Indian Idol isn't nearly the sort of community obsession in the rest of India. Maybe the collective Gorkha identity will be enough to put their champion through into stardom, into popularity, into whatever.
The past few days the newspapers have been dominated by pictures of Prashant's visit. I can't help but want him to win, if only to see the spectacle in Kalimpong on his victory. I worry though. I worry that the Gorkhas' will ask too much of him if he wins, or that the vindication they will feel won't turn into expectations that he can't possibly meet. One way or another, having an Indian Idol from the hills region won't rectify the underlying political and cultural issues that make the Gorkhas feel so alienated and misunderstood by the rest of All India. In the end, he's just a singer, good but not great, nice but not especially charismatic. Up there on the stage he seemed a bit overwhelmed by all that has happened to him since getting on the show and making it this far, just a little bit shocked at the way he had been made into, well, an idol.
After all, idols are just statues, just images--no more powerful than the beliefs and hopes that people have for them. It's a sort of placebo religion that keeps people going and keeps them satisfied, but has no substance to support them when the giddiness fades. The problem is, this idol, for the moment, is making people feel happy and important, and I don't dare shatter this golden calf when I have no tablet stones to offer in its stead. I'm not even up the mountain. I'm not a prophet or a leader or a messiah. The Nepali diaspora and the Gorkha identity of alienation is a far larger issue that I can only begin to grasp. Mostly, I just catch glimpses of it, visible for a few minutes on the faces of a crowd sprinting towards Chowrasta, eager to see their hero.
Tuesday, September 4, 2007
Nightfall in Thunder Town
Headlights and street lamps project portentous puppet plays through the tumbling misty darkness. Most of the stores still haven't closed, and even the food-sellers remain open for business. Middle aged women and a few men sit cross legged on the raised platform of their bamboo and canvas stalls, chopping meat and fish or just waiting patiently for the evening rush to start. All around their dusty feet their fruits and vegetables are spread out for display, illuminated by thin candles sticking out of wine bottles and dangling from coat-hanger wires.
Everything in Darjeeling is moist and full of texture. None of the dusty pastels of Kalimpong, this is a city of earth tones--rich ones that leave the eye heartbroken that such colors appear so rarely. Paint chips and fades, concrete cracks and stains, and stone is slowly overtaken by thick green moss and spotty red lichen. The walls all speak of history and life. This is not an old city by many standards, but its peculiar trials and struggles have been worn deep into the cobblestones by a sort of loving neglect, giving the city an aged quality that towns like Kalimpong lack.
The name "Darjeeling" is Tibetan, meaning "place of the thunderbolt." Here the qualities that have endeared me to Kalimpong have been taken to a further extreme. The particular mountain on which the city is perched is higher, steeper, and cloudier than the hills I've grown familiar with. Darjeeling is colder too. Scarves and fleeces seem to be the way to go, even in early September. During the day the day the Chowrasta area near our hotel reveals its touristy nature, dissolving into a seemingly homogeneous soup of cafes, handicraft stores, and curio shops. When the sun sets anonymously behind the clouds, however, things change, become more interesting, more mysterious. You see, Darjeeling has a night life.
"Night life," of course, is a relative term. In Darjeeling it means that the last band finishes its set at 9:30, and even the hippest parties end at ten. Still, compared to Kalimpong, where lack of street lights and unpaved roads make getting home after six o'clock a treacherous task, the excitement practically never stops. The first night Ansel, Josh and I head out after dinner. We stumble past the scarab-green mosque and down narrow, steeply sloping road. The air smells strongly of halal, and here and there packs of street dogs dig through piles of soggy trash. We settle on a tiny bar whose name we can't make out. The inside is sparsely decorated with the strangest assortment of posters; the Dali Lama, the stars of the Harry Potter movies, and a poem about mothers all hang framed from the pale, unrememberably colored walls. We sit in a curtained booth, and one of the employees brings us our beers. I don't usually buy alcohol, but having a drink in a sketchy Indian bar seems too amusing to pass up. Two Nepalis we recognize as employees of our hotel nod to us as they leave. Hit Beer is poor and mediocre at best, but tries to make up for it by coming in larger quantities. The label says "for sale in Sikkim only," and we notice that it is stamped with a price twenty rupees less than what the bartender told us. Assuming they are price gouging for rich foreigners, we insist on the lower amount. The bartender explains that the jump in price is due to the risk taken in smuggling the beer across the boarder into West Bengal and brings out the bar's accounting books to prove that they do indeed charge everyone fifty-five rupees. We apologize and leave, chuckling at our paranoia.
The next night Tanya gets a call from our morning lecturer that a good band is playing at the area's hottest night spot, The Buzz. This time our whole group goes, including the program kitchen staff. The Buzz is apparently located is the basement of a Glenary's cafe and sweet shop. As we tromp down the stairs, the smells of alcohol mix with the doughy aromas of Indian pastries. Downstairs the interior design is an ode to western culture: model airplanes, pictures of revolvers and vintage cars, eighties electric guitars, forties pulp movie posters, a small boat. A band occupies one corner, playing American rock songs as tolerable volumes. We sit. Drinks and, later, hookah are brought out. We're joined by two trios of travelling westerners about our age, one from Stanford, the other from England. During one of the band's short breaks, Ansel goes up and convinces them to let him play drums for "Smoke On The Water." We all cheer and crowd the small dance floor. The lead singer introduces his special guest performance as "all the way from America!" and calls him his Nepali name, Prashant--a reference lost on our western companions, who have just arrived in the hills area. When the song is over Ansel and the singer hug, and we all stay up dancing for the last few songs of the set. Afterwards we jog home to make curfew, held in silence by the mesmerizing shadow-play of gas lamps through mist and marijuana smoke.
Everything in Darjeeling is moist and full of texture. None of the dusty pastels of Kalimpong, this is a city of earth tones--rich ones that leave the eye heartbroken that such colors appear so rarely. Paint chips and fades, concrete cracks and stains, and stone is slowly overtaken by thick green moss and spotty red lichen. The walls all speak of history and life. This is not an old city by many standards, but its peculiar trials and struggles have been worn deep into the cobblestones by a sort of loving neglect, giving the city an aged quality that towns like Kalimpong lack.
The name "Darjeeling" is Tibetan, meaning "place of the thunderbolt." Here the qualities that have endeared me to Kalimpong have been taken to a further extreme. The particular mountain on which the city is perched is higher, steeper, and cloudier than the hills I've grown familiar with. Darjeeling is colder too. Scarves and fleeces seem to be the way to go, even in early September. During the day the day the Chowrasta area near our hotel reveals its touristy nature, dissolving into a seemingly homogeneous soup of cafes, handicraft stores, and curio shops. When the sun sets anonymously behind the clouds, however, things change, become more interesting, more mysterious. You see, Darjeeling has a night life.
"Night life," of course, is a relative term. In Darjeeling it means that the last band finishes its set at 9:30, and even the hippest parties end at ten. Still, compared to Kalimpong, where lack of street lights and unpaved roads make getting home after six o'clock a treacherous task, the excitement practically never stops. The first night Ansel, Josh and I head out after dinner. We stumble past the scarab-green mosque and down narrow, steeply sloping road. The air smells strongly of halal, and here and there packs of street dogs dig through piles of soggy trash. We settle on a tiny bar whose name we can't make out. The inside is sparsely decorated with the strangest assortment of posters; the Dali Lama, the stars of the Harry Potter movies, and a poem about mothers all hang framed from the pale, unrememberably colored walls. We sit in a curtained booth, and one of the employees brings us our beers. I don't usually buy alcohol, but having a drink in a sketchy Indian bar seems too amusing to pass up. Two Nepalis we recognize as employees of our hotel nod to us as they leave. Hit Beer is poor and mediocre at best, but tries to make up for it by coming in larger quantities. The label says "for sale in Sikkim only," and we notice that it is stamped with a price twenty rupees less than what the bartender told us. Assuming they are price gouging for rich foreigners, we insist on the lower amount. The bartender explains that the jump in price is due to the risk taken in smuggling the beer across the boarder into West Bengal and brings out the bar's accounting books to prove that they do indeed charge everyone fifty-five rupees. We apologize and leave, chuckling at our paranoia.
The next night Tanya gets a call from our morning lecturer that a good band is playing at the area's hottest night spot, The Buzz. This time our whole group goes, including the program kitchen staff. The Buzz is apparently located is the basement of a Glenary's cafe and sweet shop. As we tromp down the stairs, the smells of alcohol mix with the doughy aromas of Indian pastries. Downstairs the interior design is an ode to western culture: model airplanes, pictures of revolvers and vintage cars, eighties electric guitars, forties pulp movie posters, a small boat. A band occupies one corner, playing American rock songs as tolerable volumes. We sit. Drinks and, later, hookah are brought out. We're joined by two trios of travelling westerners about our age, one from Stanford, the other from England. During one of the band's short breaks, Ansel goes up and convinces them to let him play drums for "Smoke On The Water." We all cheer and crowd the small dance floor. The lead singer introduces his special guest performance as "all the way from America!" and calls him his Nepali name, Prashant--a reference lost on our western companions, who have just arrived in the hills area. When the song is over Ansel and the singer hug, and we all stay up dancing for the last few songs of the set. Afterwards we jog home to make curfew, held in silence by the mesmerizing shadow-play of gas lamps through mist and marijuana smoke.
Saturday, September 1, 2007
Shared Territory
Last week I found a hornet in my room. It buzzed uselessly around the room's single light bulb, occasionally breaking off to swoop menacingly at my head. I had noticed the baseball sized nest hanging from the roof outside my window, but had decided that if I just ignored it hard enough it might eventually go away. As it turned out this was not an effective policy, as the huge black insects had apparently decided to claim new territory in my room. I went and got my host family, who cooed sympathetically at my predicament. My aamaa went down stairs and returned with a mouth full of kerosene, which she spit with startling distance and accuracy at the sinister gray hornets nest. Driven from their home by the deadly fluid, the hornets swarmed my room angrily. We retreated hastily.
I spent the next half hour sitting in the next room with my host father, eating peanuts. Now and then a hornet would venture our of my room, and I would jump up to the attack, swinging my thick worn copy of Heretics of Dune like a baseball bat and swatting them vengefully out of the air. When all the hornets seemed to have either fled or been killed by my heavy book, we used a straw broom to detach the now soggy and blackened nest, and bring it in through the window. Ignoring my pleas to take it to the next room, Shankar promptly cracked the nest open, spilling the fat white hornet larvae out onto my floor. These he explained, would make nutritious chicken feed. I went to bed, feeling triumphant.
The next night something huge and green awoke me with its loud flapping. I turned on the light and could tell by its dancing, distorted shadow that it was something like a grasshopper. I remained huddled within the safety of my mosquito net, and eventually it flew back out the window.
The day after that I returned to find a spider the size of my fist perched serenely on my window. The inside of my window. It was the biggest spider I have ever seen. I gently opened the shutters and flicked it away.
My room is not my own. It is the home, I am constantly reminded, of numerous ants, spiders, insects, and bugs. I've mostly given up trying to fight them. Once I accepted them, it ceased to be that bad. Now and then a small but insidious centipede will dart out at me when I open my suitcase, or a huge moth will flutter out of the folds of my hanging towel when I reach up to wipe the sweat off my face. Most of the time, though, I'll just wave my hand vaguely above my head, and try to make the journey from the door to cover of my mosquito net as quick as possible.
There is something incredibly humbling about sharing one's personal territory with the insect kingdom. I have come to feel a grudgingly privileged at being able to observe them so intimately. Their ways are so alien, and the uses they make of the room, the furniture, and, indeed, my own possessions remind me just how unique humans are when compared to most creatures on the planet. To them a suitcase is nothing more than a dark, dry place to hide. To me, it has a whole host of other meanings, meanings which to them, I'm sure, would be equally as alien.
I don't feel comfortable with them, though. The mosquito net provides an effective means of segregation, and I still twitch and jerk with paranoia at every itch and phantom caress that touches my skin when outside my nylon apartheid. At the moment I'm taking refuge in the air conditioned interior of the internet cafe. In a few minutes, however, I'll return home to the shared territory of my room, and lie there, listening to the hums and buzzings of a thousand lives not my own.
I spent the next half hour sitting in the next room with my host father, eating peanuts. Now and then a hornet would venture our of my room, and I would jump up to the attack, swinging my thick worn copy of Heretics of Dune like a baseball bat and swatting them vengefully out of the air. When all the hornets seemed to have either fled or been killed by my heavy book, we used a straw broom to detach the now soggy and blackened nest, and bring it in through the window. Ignoring my pleas to take it to the next room, Shankar promptly cracked the nest open, spilling the fat white hornet larvae out onto my floor. These he explained, would make nutritious chicken feed. I went to bed, feeling triumphant.
The next night something huge and green awoke me with its loud flapping. I turned on the light and could tell by its dancing, distorted shadow that it was something like a grasshopper. I remained huddled within the safety of my mosquito net, and eventually it flew back out the window.
The day after that I returned to find a spider the size of my fist perched serenely on my window. The inside of my window. It was the biggest spider I have ever seen. I gently opened the shutters and flicked it away.
My room is not my own. It is the home, I am constantly reminded, of numerous ants, spiders, insects, and bugs. I've mostly given up trying to fight them. Once I accepted them, it ceased to be that bad. Now and then a small but insidious centipede will dart out at me when I open my suitcase, or a huge moth will flutter out of the folds of my hanging towel when I reach up to wipe the sweat off my face. Most of the time, though, I'll just wave my hand vaguely above my head, and try to make the journey from the door to cover of my mosquito net as quick as possible.
There is something incredibly humbling about sharing one's personal territory with the insect kingdom. I have come to feel a grudgingly privileged at being able to observe them so intimately. Their ways are so alien, and the uses they make of the room, the furniture, and, indeed, my own possessions remind me just how unique humans are when compared to most creatures on the planet. To them a suitcase is nothing more than a dark, dry place to hide. To me, it has a whole host of other meanings, meanings which to them, I'm sure, would be equally as alien.
I don't feel comfortable with them, though. The mosquito net provides an effective means of segregation, and I still twitch and jerk with paranoia at every itch and phantom caress that touches my skin when outside my nylon apartheid. At the moment I'm taking refuge in the air conditioned interior of the internet cafe. In a few minutes, however, I'll return home to the shared territory of my room, and lie there, listening to the hums and buzzings of a thousand lives not my own.
Struggle
Two creatures fight to the death. We all crowd around and egg them on. "Wasp! Wasp!" some shout. "Get em' Spider!" cry others. The two combatants scuttle and leap after each other, confining their battle to the top of the blue plastic water jug where we wash our hands. After a few seconds of dashing and dodging, they leap together, their many legs grappling furiously as they roll around their arena. The wasp and the spider are about the same size and seem evenly matched. Getting as close as we can, we watch the spider's fangs gnash perilously close to its opponent's abdomen. Before the arachnid's bite can find its mark, however, the wasp shifts position and plunges its vicious looking stinger into the spider's midsection. The battle is over. We cheer, and continue to watch, mesmerized, as the wasp drags its fallen nemesis off the jug, leaping nimbly from leaf to leaf on a nearby bush. At last we turn away and head in for lunch, content that we have borne witness to the fascinating struggle of the natural world.
The idea of struggle is one that infuses and informs much of the philosophy of the martial arts. Struggle is also, I think, one of the major ways in which the martial arts makes itself distinct and different from religion. It serves as a test by which misleading or excessive concepts are pruned and selected against: if a philosophy doesn't hold up when fighting for your life, it doesn't hold up at all. However useful a martial artist's ideas might be in his daily life, they all, in the end, must be useful in a struggle as well.
As a martial artist, I felt especially satisfied by watching the wasp and spider's melee. This, I thought, was truly real combat--not the endless fictions shown on TV and in movies, not the brutal but inherently limited duels of boxing or mixed martial arts, not even our own cherished freestyle sparring--real. So much of our understanding of the world has been built with the thin cardboard of media images and dramatized accounts. Perhaps fortunately, many of us in the West will never see what actual violence looks like or know what it feels like to fight for our lives. This is not a bad thing. We should cherish the peace and safety our civilization has afforded some of us. However, like with so many practices and experiences that have passed from our lives in the modern world, we should acknowledge that something is missing.
I pondered this way for a week.
The other I woke up to wretched cries. Out in front of the house, Shankar and a
fatherly looking man had ahold of one of my host family's goats. My host father held the animal down and hog-tied its legs together. The second man had a strangely shiny clamp device. This man is called a compressor. He carefully positioned the tongs of the clamp on either side of the goat's testicles. The goat struggled. The man squeezed.
I don't think I've ever heard a creature express such pain.
You must understand: goats have enormous balls. They hang hugely and proudly like a pair of blue ribbon apples in a leather bag. One can't help but be uncomfortably fascinated by them as the goats leap around the yard. Goats are also, I've been told, quite rowdy and difficult if not castrated. This is a quite standard procedure in animal husbandry, one that is probably practiced dozens of times a year in Kalimpong alone. I continued to stare, horrified and transfixed, as the compressor slammed the clamp down on the goat's testicles several more times. My host father saw me watching from the kitchen and grinned good naturedly at me. When the goat had apparently been mutilated to their satisfaction, the two men untied it and let it go. The creature staggered a few steps and just stood, quivering, looking out at the mountains.
Shankar went over to the barn shed and picked up second goat. After centuries of domestic breeding the goat was not very smart. Still, I could see its eyes dart from the first goat to the man with the shiny clamp, and I knew that it sensed danger. Again the goat struggled, and again it was overpowered and castrated.
This scene brought my thoughts back to the spider and the wasp that had given me such satisfaction. The way the goat fought as hard as it could, though it was too late, its every muscle pushing futilely against the hold of the stronger, better positioned men. Was the struggle of the goat any less significant than the struggle of the fighting insects? Was the violence inflicted by my host father and his friend any less primordial and elemental than that wrecked by the victorious wasp?
Though I have continued to eat meat, I have long felt deeply unsettled by the way humans often treat other animals. It is an extraordinarily self-centered fallacy to believe that the pain and harm our civilization often inflicts on non-humans for our befit is any different than that which we sometimes inflict on each other for much the same reasons. Watching the casual brutality of animal husbandry not only reinforced these feelings, but caused me to evaluate the issue from the perspective of a martial artist.
The violence and overwhelming odds faced by the goat seems to me to be exactly the sort of situation that we have been training for, with black belts practicing freestyle sparring against two attackers. How then am I to place the scene of the goat's castration into the framework of my larger understanding of struggle? I honestly figured it out yet. What I do know is that that martial arts cannot exclude human violence against other animals from world view, for this violence is perhaps the most common and brutal and archetypal violence that exists in the world today.
The goats have been better behaved the past few days. When let out of their pen, they no longer jump and cavort around the yard, chasing the cats and chickens. They'll walk about docilely, eating what treats my host siblings bring them. Every now and then, though, I'll notice one walk to the edge of the yard and just stand, unmoving, looking out at the mountains.
The idea of struggle is one that infuses and informs much of the philosophy of the martial arts. Struggle is also, I think, one of the major ways in which the martial arts makes itself distinct and different from religion. It serves as a test by which misleading or excessive concepts are pruned and selected against: if a philosophy doesn't hold up when fighting for your life, it doesn't hold up at all. However useful a martial artist's ideas might be in his daily life, they all, in the end, must be useful in a struggle as well.
As a martial artist, I felt especially satisfied by watching the wasp and spider's melee. This, I thought, was truly real combat--not the endless fictions shown on TV and in movies, not the brutal but inherently limited duels of boxing or mixed martial arts, not even our own cherished freestyle sparring--real. So much of our understanding of the world has been built with the thin cardboard of media images and dramatized accounts. Perhaps fortunately, many of us in the West will never see what actual violence looks like or know what it feels like to fight for our lives. This is not a bad thing. We should cherish the peace and safety our civilization has afforded some of us. However, like with so many practices and experiences that have passed from our lives in the modern world, we should acknowledge that something is missing.
I pondered this way for a week.
The other I woke up to wretched cries. Out in front of the house, Shankar and a
fatherly looking man had ahold of one of my host family's goats. My host father held the animal down and hog-tied its legs together. The second man had a strangely shiny clamp device. This man is called a compressor. He carefully positioned the tongs of the clamp on either side of the goat's testicles. The goat struggled. The man squeezed.
I don't think I've ever heard a creature express such pain.
You must understand: goats have enormous balls. They hang hugely and proudly like a pair of blue ribbon apples in a leather bag. One can't help but be uncomfortably fascinated by them as the goats leap around the yard. Goats are also, I've been told, quite rowdy and difficult if not castrated. This is a quite standard procedure in animal husbandry, one that is probably practiced dozens of times a year in Kalimpong alone. I continued to stare, horrified and transfixed, as the compressor slammed the clamp down on the goat's testicles several more times. My host father saw me watching from the kitchen and grinned good naturedly at me. When the goat had apparently been mutilated to their satisfaction, the two men untied it and let it go. The creature staggered a few steps and just stood, quivering, looking out at the mountains.
Shankar went over to the barn shed and picked up second goat. After centuries of domestic breeding the goat was not very smart. Still, I could see its eyes dart from the first goat to the man with the shiny clamp, and I knew that it sensed danger. Again the goat struggled, and again it was overpowered and castrated.
This scene brought my thoughts back to the spider and the wasp that had given me such satisfaction. The way the goat fought as hard as it could, though it was too late, its every muscle pushing futilely against the hold of the stronger, better positioned men. Was the struggle of the goat any less significant than the struggle of the fighting insects? Was the violence inflicted by my host father and his friend any less primordial and elemental than that wrecked by the victorious wasp?
Though I have continued to eat meat, I have long felt deeply unsettled by the way humans often treat other animals. It is an extraordinarily self-centered fallacy to believe that the pain and harm our civilization often inflicts on non-humans for our befit is any different than that which we sometimes inflict on each other for much the same reasons. Watching the casual brutality of animal husbandry not only reinforced these feelings, but caused me to evaluate the issue from the perspective of a martial artist.
The violence and overwhelming odds faced by the goat seems to me to be exactly the sort of situation that we have been training for, with black belts practicing freestyle sparring against two attackers. How then am I to place the scene of the goat's castration into the framework of my larger understanding of struggle? I honestly figured it out yet. What I do know is that that martial arts cannot exclude human violence against other animals from world view, for this violence is perhaps the most common and brutal and archetypal violence that exists in the world today.
The goats have been better behaved the past few days. When let out of their pen, they no longer jump and cavort around the yard, chasing the cats and chickens. They'll walk about docilely, eating what treats my host siblings bring them. Every now and then, though, I'll notice one walk to the edge of the yard and just stand, unmoving, looking out at the mountains.
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