Even though Banaras and it's erratic power supply becomes more intolerable this week, there was excitement that kept me going. One afternoon, Rakesh of Harmony Books called me and asked if I would be interested in working as a research assistant to a student from America. I was reluctant at first but I am glad I did not decline Leda's wonderful project on 'Maternity and Child care in Varanasi'. Leda and I went around town meeting with famous and in-famous O.B's, doctors, Axillary Nurse Midwives, trained dai's /nurses. During these meetings and interviews with Indian doctors, I found an appalling lack of passion. The doctors we met were uninspiring and lifeless souls who had little or no passion for life and the life-giving process. I am not complaining here about the urge to make money- but a much more malicious disease. Indian doctors never smile, they attend their patients by often not making an eye contact. While their hands are busy doing the business, their eyes are on the prescription. Before you have made yourself comfortable on the twirling patients stool, the assistant brings the next impatient patient.
I recently met a medical student who wishes to practice in America (It's her father's dream). After speaking with her for about half and hour on her professional and personal life, I did not have a heart to tell her that this was not her spot. I certainly could not tell her that by working harder than the other students in her medical exams (which she feels was a prestige issue) is a wasted effort, she is fulfilling only one person's dream.
Wish we had more doctors who looked into their patients eyes without feeling burdened by the look in them.
Monday, April 28, 2008
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Delhi in April
On the 10th of April, the Shiv Ganga Express reached New Delhi railway station at 11.00 a.m, four hours after it's scheduled time of arrival. The delay added to my frustration and agony caused by overtly affectionate newly-wed co-passengers. To kill time, I was scribbling notes on my pad; they read something like: Flavours, Rajdhani, Subway, Momos , Dilli haat, Spirit, Veda (the culinary delights I'd been deprived of in Varanasi). My co-passengers took my seeming focus on the notepad as an opportunity to make more romantic sounds. Shiv Ganga's arrival finally ended my agony, after stopping at every possible small station en route to Delhi.
Once I'd battled with auto and taxi drivers, I reached a friend's apartment in the noisy part of Greater Kailash I. I was not particularly pleased with the architect after seeing the apartment's design. After spending a night at the apartment, I was completely convinced the architect had no sense at all. There was no ventilation, the apartment faced the noisiest side of the building, the kitchen was massive and yet didn't seem functional for your average Indian cook, and there was no light. Living in that flat I discovered one of my hidden desires- remodelling badly constructed houses.
Delhi was the stimulus I needed to turn my lethargic bones into motion. By 4:00 pm every day I experienced a cherished sense of achievement. In Banaras, I feel a sense of achievement in getting my staff at home to do any kind of work. In a span of four working days in Delhi, within the constraints of the ever-so-short government working hours, I went to banks in two different directions, a clinic, and the state electricity department. I also held meetings in my office and strategized for the coming days. Post office hours, I hogged on incredible food, met friends and watched films. My favourite of all was Juno. Delhi in April is not exactly fun but the air-conditioner that rarely goes out from a power cut makes up for it.
Once I'd battled with auto and taxi drivers, I reached a friend's apartment in the noisy part of Greater Kailash I. I was not particularly pleased with the architect after seeing the apartment's design. After spending a night at the apartment, I was completely convinced the architect had no sense at all. There was no ventilation, the apartment faced the noisiest side of the building, the kitchen was massive and yet didn't seem functional for your average Indian cook, and there was no light. Living in that flat I discovered one of my hidden desires- remodelling badly constructed houses.
Delhi was the stimulus I needed to turn my lethargic bones into motion. By 4:00 pm every day I experienced a cherished sense of achievement. In Banaras, I feel a sense of achievement in getting my staff at home to do any kind of work. In a span of four working days in Delhi, within the constraints of the ever-so-short government working hours, I went to banks in two different directions, a clinic, and the state electricity department. I also held meetings in my office and strategized for the coming days. Post office hours, I hogged on incredible food, met friends and watched films. My favourite of all was Juno. Delhi in April is not exactly fun but the air-conditioner that rarely goes out from a power cut makes up for it.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Hindu Disneyland
I recently learned of a phrase used in the intellectual circles of America- Hindu Disneyland . I found this term so fascinating that like every other 'smart Alec' Indian, I am renaming it (for a more localized effect) Appu-Ghar Hinduism. There are many physical and physiological similarities between the two cults. It is common to see a Hindu bringing his maha-family of mother, father, widowed mother-in-law, visiting married sister with the 'jijaji', the kids, bhaiya, bhabi and the wife to a sacred Hindu site. As soon as the over-speeding, dust-covered Qualises (often with a neighbouring state's number plate) halt screechingly outside the pilgrimage center, the kids jump out and the men start looking for holes. The women complain about the long journey and their crushed sarees and pick up the water bottles that they most likely bought during the last trip.
During my recent trip to the Hindu holy site of Gupt-Godavari (litt. secret Godavari river), I had an opportunity to observe 'Appu-Ghar Hinduism' in action. In the late 1980s, to visit Appu-Ghar was not really the coolest thing to do, but we, the kids of upper-middle class parents, loved it. I loved the rides, ice-cream stands, and the Maggie counter; I loved shopping for some random thing I convinced my parents, I desperately needed, the inaudible announcements and the process of sticking with your parents in the crowds. The trip was more fun in a bigger group, it would give the kids a rare opportunity to wander around while mummy and aunties would share stories of their cruel mother-in-laws. The other hot topic was 'my kids'. I thought this exercise was an unsaid competetion of 'I suffered more' or 'I am a better mummy'. Nevertheless I loved Appu-Ghar.
The younger ladies walk together gossiping, sharing their shopping stories or casual neighbourhood stories that the listeners comment about. A common element is that these women are all dressed in their best 'outside home' clothes. They wear matching bangles, lipstick, bindis and Tulsi-inspired mid-hair vermillion that often shoots out like an arrow on their foreheads. The men walk talking about cell-phone or car models--Indian men genuinely refrain from talking about other kinds of models during family 'holy-site outings'. The group walks into the cave or temple together laughing and talking, unobservant of anything that surrounds them. At Gupt-Godavari they all enter a gufa, a cave under a barren surface from where the Godavari waters emerge-cool and clean. The group decides to play black-out with the family by calling out their names aloud. The names echo-they love it. A few others follow the trick. They also make indefinably blank eye-contact with the passerbys who have had their darshan. Smiling at strangers is such an un-Indian act but what is surely Indian is joining the passerbys in their loud 'hail God' calls. The group returns outside after darshan and resumes chatting about new topics.
During my recent trip to the Hindu holy site of Gupt-Godavari (litt. secret Godavari river), I had an opportunity to observe 'Appu-Ghar Hinduism' in action. In the late 1980s, to visit Appu-Ghar was not really the coolest thing to do, but we, the kids of upper-middle class parents, loved it. I loved the rides, ice-cream stands, and the Maggie counter; I loved shopping for some random thing I convinced my parents, I desperately needed, the inaudible announcements and the process of sticking with your parents in the crowds. The trip was more fun in a bigger group, it would give the kids a rare opportunity to wander around while mummy and aunties would share stories of their cruel mother-in-laws. The other hot topic was 'my kids'. I thought this exercise was an unsaid competetion of 'I suffered more' or 'I am a better mummy'. Nevertheless I loved Appu-Ghar.
The younger ladies walk together gossiping, sharing their shopping stories or casual neighbourhood stories that the listeners comment about. A common element is that these women are all dressed in their best 'outside home' clothes. They wear matching bangles, lipstick, bindis and Tulsi-inspired mid-hair vermillion that often shoots out like an arrow on their foreheads. The men walk talking about cell-phone or car models--Indian men genuinely refrain from talking about other kinds of models during family 'holy-site outings'. The group walks into the cave or temple together laughing and talking, unobservant of anything that surrounds them. At Gupt-Godavari they all enter a gufa, a cave under a barren surface from where the Godavari waters emerge-cool and clean. The group decides to play black-out with the family by calling out their names aloud. The names echo-they love it. A few others follow the trick. They also make indefinably blank eye-contact with the passerbys who have had their darshan. Smiling at strangers is such an un-Indian act but what is surely Indian is joining the passerbys in their loud 'hail God' calls. The group returns outside after darshan and resumes chatting about new topics.
Flames in a barren forest
Tall, dry, slim trunks supporting orangy-crimson blooms dominated our way to Jaitwara. Our airconditioned Innova sped through the narrow stretch of road between Gupt-Godavari Caves, where we had spent our morning, and Jaitwara. This town, close to Satna, is a small bauxite mining center in Madhya Pradesh. Our van filled with girly screams of 'papa!' to slow down. Papa momentarily acceded to decelerating, but couldn't resist the surprisingly smooth roads. Speeding past us were a few motorcyclists covered in colours. Despite a fleeting glimpse, I could not miss the distinct vermillion tilaks with random rice grains on their forheads. This was a day after Holi and people seemed to have forgotten the cardinal rule of rest after Dhulendi. A group of faceless village boys intending to have 'fun' tried to stop our speeding luxury. They were fully drenched and covered in colours, so dark and indiscriminate that I wondered if Holi was a festival of colour or muck. Our experienced driver, the 'papa' to four of our wonderful companions, deftly tried swerving the car to a 'no-danger' point from the boys. But those boys quickly remaneouvered: they motioned to let us by then hurled a bucket full of cow dung on the van, turning the rear glass opaque. The backview-less van rushed through a gorgeous landscape of brown-yellow hills, spreading trees, golden wheat farms, flowering mango orchards, dry plateaus, and valleys covered in old and new leaves. Now writing a month later, I may say that it was fun speeding through those valleys to Jaitwara. It could also be that this journey ended with a short visit to a wonderfully warm family. I must send the family a postcard soon. Their house and in fact their entire town was covered in a fine red dust. As they satisified my curiosity about the cause of the distinctive dust, I thought to myself that my Class X chemistry teacher must have never seen the metals described in Chapter 1 of our textbook. He never told us that before it becomes aluminum, bauxite is red.
But what is certain is that my class X Physics teacher knew nothing about Chapter 1 ( Metals and Non- Metals). He never told us that bauxite is red in colour.
But what is certain is that my class X Physics teacher knew nothing about Chapter 1 ( Metals and Non- Metals). He never told us that bauxite is red in colour.
Monday, April 7, 2008
Barefoot Soldiers
Google search gives away 33,500 hits on Tilonia. Tilonia is a tiny little place, smaller than the campus of Doon School where Mr. Bunker Roy was educated . In 1972, Sanjit Bunker Roy, a three time national squash champion, set up the Barefoot College at Tilonia. Barefoot is a place to unlearn and learn.
I visited Tilonia on 17th March with a view of visiting an NGO- like many others I had visited before. When I returned home to Delhi that evening, I wished my high school curriculum incorporated some 'unlearning' that the Barefoot emphasizes on.
What sets the College apart from the other NGO's, I have visited before are the barefooters who work there without a consideration for the weekends or office hours. The barefooted soldiers I met; Vasu ( a middle-class city intellectual born in the late 50's) , Dr. Bhattacharya ( practiced medicine at Ajmer and studied briefly in the U.K) , Bhagwat Nandan ( head of the solar energy department), Aunti ji (who I met at the dispensary) over the course of a four hour visit were all unique individuals. They all had their own reasons to be at the institute. They all unlearnt what they had learnt earlier in life- at medical school, at university, at home or at work. They live in a world where expertise on fixing a hyperbolic solar cooker gets them the coveted title of an engineer. At the centre, we met weavers who made music with their looms, toy makers (used waste material), durrie makers, electric circuit making Barefoot engineers teaching other students from Bhutan, Africa and India (outside of Tilonia) . The entire atmosphere was like a Gandhian ashram except the Western Union money transfers. The food cooked by an all men team was made using a solar cooker. I ended up eating a lot of food- was delicious.
It was interesting to see women fixing the mirror discs and fixing electric circuits and men cooking food using their products to cook delicious food.
Visit Barefoot to help a chip fall freely off your shoulder.
I visited Tilonia on 17th March with a view of visiting an NGO- like many others I had visited before. When I returned home to Delhi that evening, I wished my high school curriculum incorporated some 'unlearning' that the Barefoot emphasizes on.
What sets the College apart from the other NGO's, I have visited before are the barefooters who work there without a consideration for the weekends or office hours. The barefooted soldiers I met; Vasu ( a middle-class city intellectual born in the late 50's) , Dr. Bhattacharya ( practiced medicine at Ajmer and studied briefly in the U.K) , Bhagwat Nandan ( head of the solar energy department), Aunti ji (who I met at the dispensary) over the course of a four hour visit were all unique individuals. They all had their own reasons to be at the institute. They all unlearnt what they had learnt earlier in life- at medical school, at university, at home or at work. They live in a world where expertise on fixing a hyperbolic solar cooker gets them the coveted title of an engineer. At the centre, we met weavers who made music with their looms, toy makers (used waste material), durrie makers, electric circuit making Barefoot engineers teaching other students from Bhutan, Africa and India (outside of Tilonia) . The entire atmosphere was like a Gandhian ashram except the Western Union money transfers. The food cooked by an all men team was made using a solar cooker. I ended up eating a lot of food- was delicious.
It was interesting to see women fixing the mirror discs and fixing electric circuits and men cooking food using their products to cook delicious food.
Visit Barefoot to help a chip fall freely off your shoulder.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Brahma's Progeny
Two weeks ago, I spent a wonderful Sunday in Pushkar, Rajasthan. Pushkar is quaint, white-washed, colourful and surprisingly peaceful --as any pilgrim town compared to Banaras would be. I stayed at the wonderfully located Pushkar Palace--above the lake. My room, though not good value for the money, had a projecting balcony that I had never had the chance to take advantage of. The phone calls, travel arrangements and tiresome journey kept me away from the view. To overcome my guilt, I slept that night with the balcony door open to the lake. It was nothing short of the scene from Chaudhavin ka Chand, where gauzy curtains caress a half-sleepy Wahida Rehman's face.
Pushkar is rewarding-it has the trees, marigold gardens, women in Rajasthani costume (with covered heads and plunging necklines) picking the flowers (offering a small bouquet for me), chiming camels, a wonderful reflexologist (a better human being) and silence. But my memories of Pushkar are also scarred with reports of sexual abuse and hippy orgies, plastic trash-covered dunes, mushrooming hotels and their clueless owners.
I had heard that riding a camel cart is a good way to release oneself- I did just that and walked right into the setting sun over the stunted hills. The headless neem trees (used for animals) and shiny black plastic covering the sand eventually led me to a perfect spot- in between two sister hills. The silence was eerie and adding to the unnaturalness was haunting music played on an ektara by two young boys. The two did not go to a school-there are no good jobs anyways. The camel driver, son of a mining labourer sends his son to a private school. The government schools offer no education. His eldest son is a graduate and wants to study law. "There are no jobs, why should he waste more years", he says wryly.
My camel driver was a 40 year old, light-eyed man. Accompanying him was his 8 year old. The father wished to take another route on the way back to the hotel, asked his son to check whether the gate to the exit was open. Deepak sped off, signaling his father to keep moving to the gate. A minute later, his uncertain father asked him to double check. Deepak ran faster than any 8 year old I had seen at the Blue Bells School sports day. Apologetically, he waved a big NO. Running and gaping, Deepak took a 20 second break to breathe and climbed into the cart. The two shared no more words and rode us through the well-lit Pushkar bazaars. I spent the rest of the evening wondering, "When was the last time I did something for my father?”
Pushkar is rewarding-it has the trees, marigold gardens, women in Rajasthani costume (with covered heads and plunging necklines) picking the flowers (offering a small bouquet for me), chiming camels, a wonderful reflexologist (a better human being) and silence. But my memories of Pushkar are also scarred with reports of sexual abuse and hippy orgies, plastic trash-covered dunes, mushrooming hotels and their clueless owners.
I had heard that riding a camel cart is a good way to release oneself- I did just that and walked right into the setting sun over the stunted hills. The headless neem trees (used for animals) and shiny black plastic covering the sand eventually led me to a perfect spot- in between two sister hills. The silence was eerie and adding to the unnaturalness was haunting music played on an ektara by two young boys. The two did not go to a school-there are no good jobs anyways. The camel driver, son of a mining labourer sends his son to a private school. The government schools offer no education. His eldest son is a graduate and wants to study law. "There are no jobs, why should he waste more years", he says wryly.
My camel driver was a 40 year old, light-eyed man. Accompanying him was his 8 year old. The father wished to take another route on the way back to the hotel, asked his son to check whether the gate to the exit was open. Deepak sped off, signaling his father to keep moving to the gate. A minute later, his uncertain father asked him to double check. Deepak ran faster than any 8 year old I had seen at the Blue Bells School sports day. Apologetically, he waved a big NO. Running and gaping, Deepak took a 20 second break to breathe and climbed into the cart. The two shared no more words and rode us through the well-lit Pushkar bazaars. I spent the rest of the evening wondering, "When was the last time I did something for my father?”
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
How green was my valley?
On the morning of seventh of November 2007, Shiv-Ganga Express of the North Eastern Railways brought me to a city I had never visited before. This city is the one that every Hindu in the world desires to visit at least once in a lifetime. There are countless places of religious importance to Hindus in India. Yet, none of these places compare to Varanasi, the city of Shiva on the banks of Ganga.
My parents both upper caste Hindus have never visited Varanasi. Something tells me they never will. My father has traveled extensively in this part of the country. Despite his familiarity with this region, my father, a pious Brahman has never visited this holiest of the holy city. He dislikes what one sees in this region- gross poverty, corruption and virtually no development. He also finds this region highly disturbing as he fails to understand the deep rooted complexities seen in every aspect of life here. Though my father likes to have a holy dip of Ganga twice every year, he does so at a cleaner spot in Haridwar, a town not far removed from his.
My parents both upper caste Hindus have never visited Varanasi. Something tells me they never will. My father has traveled extensively in this part of the country. Despite his familiarity with this region, my father, a pious Brahman has never visited this holiest of the holy city. He dislikes what one sees in this region- gross poverty, corruption and virtually no development. He also finds this region highly disturbing as he fails to understand the deep rooted complexities seen in every aspect of life here. Though my father likes to have a holy dip of Ganga twice every year, he does so at a cleaner spot in Haridwar, a town not far removed from his.
Being the first member in my family to visit Varanasi, I faced some bit of envy and some ridicule. “Why would you choose to go to a city of cow dung and pee?” asked my mother trying hard to convince me otherwise. Clearly, the pretty Incredible India posters of Varanasi did not leave much of an impression on my mother. I decided not to not mention an article titled ‘Varanasi-Shit Hole of the Gods’ that I had read a week before. Today, in retrospect I know the immediate reason I decided to move to Uttar Pradesh was to find just how bad the ‘evil land’ can be.
For me the region of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar till November 2007 was a land where the goondas lived. This was the land where you could get killed in an instance. Newspaper reports on U.P and neighbouring Bihar were full of crime, gang rape of Dalit women, murder and kidnapping. As a student of history, I learnt that U.P and Bihar geographically fall in the region that formed the first ever organized monarchies and oligarchies in India’s history. These two states have also produced some of the best remembered figures in Indian History and contemporary Indian society. This historical fact is in all likelihood forgotten by all Indians like my father in lieu of a memory of the biggest scams, corruption charges, trafficking and goondaraj. He like many other Indians addresses people of U.P and Bihar as bhaiyyas (brothers) and likes to entertain people at a social with his reserve of ‘attributes’ and ‘characteristics’ of the bhaiyyas.
I found Varanasi like any other city in North India that I had seen before. As I took an auto to get to my new home, I passed by small food stalls, auto repairs shops, large hoardings and shanties around the railway station- nothing uncommon to Indian cities, small or big.
As our auto rickshaw jumped over historic potholes, pools of pee and cow poop, we barely escaped two massive bulls blocking nearly 10 feet wide roads. I was already working a date to return back to Delhi in my mind. I could not help but observe that one thing that outnumbers temples and saree shops in Varanasi is the paan ki dukaan. Viola! I had finally arrived in the Bhaiyyadom. The jokes that my father shared with his friends and family about the bhaiyyas were all falling flat on me. I had arrived in the land of orangy spit marks and garbage.
After a week of deafening Diwali celebrations in the city, I decided to explore the eternal city on what else but a cycle rickshaw. It was a big circus outside with riotous processions blocking major roads. SUV’s of the Samajwadi Party (chief opposition and the last ruling party in U.P) leaders who sat in the vehicles chewing paan, wearing their aviator glasses zipped through the narrow roads. What I saw disturbed me- pedestrians, cyclists, rickshaw-wallas alike as also mine all drew themselves to a corner in a display of bizarre surrender. I learnt my first traffic rule in Varanasi. No one gives way to alarming ambulance vans but police or goonda jeeps.
My rickshaw-walla, a 40+ Yadav told me that it is best to give sides or else you would be trampled under these speeding jeeps. I noticed that he did not pay attention to heaviness of his words. I returned home all upset and ready to leave for Delhi. But the very next day I was all excited about going out again.
Despite having lived in Varanasi for four months now, I have problem understanding our rickshaw-wallas, sabzi-walla, and grocery-walla not because of the bhojpuri dialect but paan full mouth. I was annoyed with the ease that everyone I dealt, with carried on their sleeve. I pass by rows of squatted men; rickshawwallas, subzi-wallas, dukaandars gossiping for hours on the side of narrow roads. I have often wonder what they speak about.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the strong bastions of the concept of ‘traditional India’. Rarely seen things in Delhi like happy joint-families, sarees clad women with covered heads, celebration of underdog festivals in the Hindu calendar and wishing each other by hailing God are a way of life here. I also discovered during my conversations with the locals that these are not some mandatory burdensome rituals, Banarasis are proud on being able to live this life of tradition. It makes me happy to hear people I meet in Varanasi speak in high Hindi. This is my mother language that I had left behind in school text books.
To get my household started in Varanasi, I dealt with people who did not speak a language I thought originated from this region. One of my early achievements in the city was to get people to know their duties and settling their salaries. I considered myself particularly lucky when I found someone to take the garbage away. To find someone in Delhi at the rate she quoted would be finding roses in a public garden. I decided to pay her some extra for the mighty job that includes collecting garbage in a big bag and putting it away into a municipal container at some distance. In the evening while returning home from my city visit, I found all the trash she had collected in the morning outside my house's main gate.
To find garbage on the roads after the homes have been cleaned spic and span, playing loud (est) music, screaming and shouting in private or public are by no means a reflection of a selfish society. “This is an outburst of a suppressed society that was let loose overnight.” My landlady who belongs to a well-known aristocratic family of Varanasi explained, “We all live in a zoo that that where the lions and tigers are in chains and the monkeys are let loose. The historic pyramid of hierarchy has been reversed and I am saying this with my personal experience, people who served us earlier and who cannot sign their names, are now making decisions for us.”
It is indeed awkward if I think about it. I have never been able to understand why Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is still so backward. Our domestic help used her earnings from me to buy the latest cell phone in the market and asked me to load up a phone tune. “Why don’t these people use their money to give their children good food or good clothes?" I was thinking aloud. Their children are dying of malnutrition and disease. Men buy latest phones, spend money on cigarettes and alcohol but never buy medicines for their sick wives. "They have ten or twelve children on an average and the four to five year olds are left to look after new born. All this is despite our constant warnings about women’s health and awareness campaigns. How can you expect them to be study? The just want to live for the day.”, said a friend who works as an intern at the city's well-known university hospital. “In Banaras there are many people who wish to donate to the temple but the priests are all chors, they suck up the money and send it to their sons to start a new business.” Mrs. Yadav my neighbour says. Mrs. Yadav's son has started a new business allegedly with the money that he was 'gifted' by his good American friend. She invited him to move to Kentucky but he did not want to leave India where his parents live.
Mrs. Yadav is right, this is a city built with donations. Maharajas and their families, rich zamindars and pilgrims were all eager to shed some percentage of their money, whether hard or easy earned. To donate to a temple and the city would earn them spiritual merit. Patrons from all over India donated generously, built magnificent temples, some migrated, and others built vacation homes. It is not a coincidence that most of the extant havelis were built either by Bengalis or Banias who came from Rajasthan or Haryana. By the mid 18th century the landscape that was primarily forest covered with a few ponds in between started to expand southward along the banks of Ganga. (It is believed that it was in this forest that the Buddha left his Brahman companions before attaining enlightenment.) Because of a highly strategic position of the city; in between the two economic zones and rich alluvial soil deposited by the Ganga many traders and mercantile communities from the country settled here. It may not be presumptuous to say that Varanasi in the 19th century was as or more cosmopolitan than New York today.
Despite having lived in Varanasi for four months now, I have problem understanding our rickshaw-wallas, sabzi-walla, and grocery-walla not because of the bhojpuri dialect but paan full mouth. I was annoyed with the ease that everyone I dealt, with carried on their sleeve. I pass by rows of squatted men; rickshawwallas, subzi-wallas, dukaandars gossiping for hours on the side of narrow roads. I have often wonder what they speak about.
Uttar Pradesh and Bihar are the strong bastions of the concept of ‘traditional India’. Rarely seen things in Delhi like happy joint-families, sarees clad women with covered heads, celebration of underdog festivals in the Hindu calendar and wishing each other by hailing God are a way of life here. I also discovered during my conversations with the locals that these are not some mandatory burdensome rituals, Banarasis are proud on being able to live this life of tradition. It makes me happy to hear people I meet in Varanasi speak in high Hindi. This is my mother language that I had left behind in school text books.
To get my household started in Varanasi, I dealt with people who did not speak a language I thought originated from this region. One of my early achievements in the city was to get people to know their duties and settling their salaries. I considered myself particularly lucky when I found someone to take the garbage away. To find someone in Delhi at the rate she quoted would be finding roses in a public garden. I decided to pay her some extra for the mighty job that includes collecting garbage in a big bag and putting it away into a municipal container at some distance. In the evening while returning home from my city visit, I found all the trash she had collected in the morning outside my house's main gate.
To find garbage on the roads after the homes have been cleaned spic and span, playing loud (est) music, screaming and shouting in private or public are by no means a reflection of a selfish society. “This is an outburst of a suppressed society that was let loose overnight.” My landlady who belongs to a well-known aristocratic family of Varanasi explained, “We all live in a zoo that that where the lions and tigers are in chains and the monkeys are let loose. The historic pyramid of hierarchy has been reversed and I am saying this with my personal experience, people who served us earlier and who cannot sign their names, are now making decisions for us.”
It is indeed awkward if I think about it. I have never been able to understand why Uttar Pradesh and Bihar is still so backward. Our domestic help used her earnings from me to buy the latest cell phone in the market and asked me to load up a phone tune. “Why don’t these people use their money to give their children good food or good clothes?" I was thinking aloud. Their children are dying of malnutrition and disease. Men buy latest phones, spend money on cigarettes and alcohol but never buy medicines for their sick wives. "They have ten or twelve children on an average and the four to five year olds are left to look after new born. All this is despite our constant warnings about women’s health and awareness campaigns. How can you expect them to be study? The just want to live for the day.”, said a friend who works as an intern at the city's well-known university hospital. “In Banaras there are many people who wish to donate to the temple but the priests are all chors, they suck up the money and send it to their sons to start a new business.” Mrs. Yadav my neighbour says. Mrs. Yadav's son has started a new business allegedly with the money that he was 'gifted' by his good American friend. She invited him to move to Kentucky but he did not want to leave India where his parents live.
Mrs. Yadav is right, this is a city built with donations. Maharajas and their families, rich zamindars and pilgrims were all eager to shed some percentage of their money, whether hard or easy earned. To donate to a temple and the city would earn them spiritual merit. Patrons from all over India donated generously, built magnificent temples, some migrated, and others built vacation homes. It is not a coincidence that most of the extant havelis were built either by Bengalis or Banias who came from Rajasthan or Haryana. By the mid 18th century the landscape that was primarily forest covered with a few ponds in between started to expand southward along the banks of Ganga. (It is believed that it was in this forest that the Buddha left his Brahman companions before attaining enlightenment.) Because of a highly strategic position of the city; in between the two economic zones and rich alluvial soil deposited by the Ganga many traders and mercantile communities from the country settled here. It may not be presumptuous to say that Varanasi in the 19th century was as or more cosmopolitan than New York today.
One can imagine British men on horse backs, Bengali men and women in palkis, Marwari traders in horse carriages and Marathi pilgrims in boats. All these communities today have their own mohallas and their own grocer, jeweller, saree walla, specialist carpenter, mason who either speaks the language they did or was referred to by their community members. This developed a close nexus of patron-service men that one sees even today. There were a few communities however, whose presence in Varanasi is surprising. One of them is that of the Chinese.
Shee- Teh a 23 year old runs one of the most modern beauty salons in the city. Her great grandfather, a doctor came to Varanasi from China and settled here. Meeting Shee-Teh reminded me of my earliest visual memory of a beauty parlour I visited with my mother in my home town of Gurgaon. The plywood walls were full of posters of Chinese women with different haircuts. Visiting a Chinese beauty parlour and getting your hair cut like one of the women from the poster printed in China in the early1980’s was a trendy affair in India in the late 1980's. People just surrendered their hair to the hairdresser. I particularly remember the Nepalese owner of the parlour my mother and her friends visited. There was no friend of my mother that I knew in 1985 who would not call her ‘the Chineje lady’, 'Nepalese lady' would have been too close. Since it helped business and preserved its unique selling point, the Nepalese owner employed girls only from North-Eastern states and subsequently they all were called Chineje assistants.
Shee- Teh a 23 year old runs one of the most modern beauty salons in the city. Her great grandfather, a doctor came to Varanasi from China and settled here. Meeting Shee-Teh reminded me of my earliest visual memory of a beauty parlour I visited with my mother in my home town of Gurgaon. The plywood walls were full of posters of Chinese women with different haircuts. Visiting a Chinese beauty parlour and getting your hair cut like one of the women from the poster printed in China in the early1980’s was a trendy affair in India in the late 1980's. People just surrendered their hair to the hairdresser. I particularly remember the Nepalese owner of the parlour my mother and her friends visited. There was no friend of my mother that I knew in 1985 who would not call her ‘the Chineje lady’, 'Nepalese lady' would have been too close. Since it helped business and preserved its unique selling point, the Nepalese owner employed girls only from North-Eastern states and subsequently they all were called Chineje assistants.
Shee-Teh’s mother is of also Chinese origin and runs the most successful and over-priced beauty salon in Varanasi, Eve's. At She-Teh's parlour you have the best beauty products and treatments and Abba, the Beatles, Billy Joel and Jimmy Hendrix. Her assistants have three things in common, fair skin, trendy modern clothes and their village. They all are Nepalese and related to each other by blood or familial ties. However, the two Indian girls who work at the salon are dark, wear Indian clothes and are always seen doing less important jobs. I wondered the reason behind this- could it be that they call her Sita and not Shee-Teh.
I visited another beauty parlour in the neighbourhood. The parlour is ostensibly called 'The Chinese Beauty Parlour'. I found signs in Chinese and Hebrew on the outside and hairstyle posters similar to the ones I had seen in the 1980’s inviting. I pulled the dark tinted glass door excitedly and found myself in a room roughly 15feet by 9feet. I saw two middle aged saree-clad aunties sitting on an old bench. A few inches away from the seated ladies were a motor-bike and a cycle. A synthetic saree-clad auntie was threading a client’s eye brow. Reflecting our bodies was a plastic creeper-framed large rectangular mirror. Surprisingly, the chair on which the client whose eye-brows were being threaded sat facing the entrance door and not the rectangular mirror. There was no electricity in the city so they needed natural light that filtered in from the ripped portions of the dark-tint sheet on the door. The ‘Chinese Beauty Parlour’ is run by an Indian who does not have a connection with China. She even admitted to not knowing anything about China but likes ‘Chineje’ food.
Banaras’s cosmopolitanism is truly marvelous. I have read stories of economic-interdependency of the two communities; Hindus and Muslims and the resultant peace that was maintained despite pressing situations until 1992 when the Babri Mosque fell. One of the most interesting stories I read was about a communal conflict in 1809. An immediate after-effect of the arrests was a unique jail strike by those arrested in the conflict. Muslims prisoners joined the Hindus in protest against the ill-treatment of upper castes in the jail.
Banarasi silk and brocade are world famous. Favoured by the Mughals and the later Indian princes, Banarasi sarees enjoyed the status of being a must have in an Indian girl’s wedding trousseau until recently. These days everything Punjabi and associated is enjoying nation-wide attention. I am no longer surprised to see women wearing Punjabi style clothes at a south Indian wedding with Bhangra music playing in the background. Tele-serials and films have further helped promote this trend. Though everyone in Banaras talks about Banaras silk as dying (just as they say about everything Banarasi), there are some people who have taken Banarasi fabric to the haute-couture. One of them is a Nift (National Institute of Fashion Technology, a highly prestigious fashion institute) graduate from Mumbai, Hemang Agrawal. All of 28, Hemang has taken his father's humble saree business to international fashion houses. Hemang informed me that the weavers are both Hindu and Muslim. Earlier the Muslim weavers outnumbered the Hindus. But now Hindus julahas from neighbouring villages form a majority of weavers. Many Muslim weavers went into other businesses like telephone and photocopying booth or migrated else where in search of 'service'.
I have over a month now been meeting with a few master weavers, small weavers and gaddidaars that our friends recommended in order to buy a saree I want to buy. This particular saree is a museum piece that I saw in an old catalogue. But I found through my interactions with various people that the sarees with the same pattern and technique as seen in the catalogue was popular till the 1970’s. But today only a handful of weavers can weave the kind I want. I met with one of the five recommended weavers. Their product was not only a poor copy in comparison with what I had asked for, but exorbitantly priced. This set me to think why a buyer willing to pay more money than usual does not find product to his satisfaction.
I visited another beauty parlour in the neighbourhood. The parlour is ostensibly called 'The Chinese Beauty Parlour'. I found signs in Chinese and Hebrew on the outside and hairstyle posters similar to the ones I had seen in the 1980’s inviting. I pulled the dark tinted glass door excitedly and found myself in a room roughly 15feet by 9feet. I saw two middle aged saree-clad aunties sitting on an old bench. A few inches away from the seated ladies were a motor-bike and a cycle. A synthetic saree-clad auntie was threading a client’s eye brow. Reflecting our bodies was a plastic creeper-framed large rectangular mirror. Surprisingly, the chair on which the client whose eye-brows were being threaded sat facing the entrance door and not the rectangular mirror. There was no electricity in the city so they needed natural light that filtered in from the ripped portions of the dark-tint sheet on the door. The ‘Chinese Beauty Parlour’ is run by an Indian who does not have a connection with China. She even admitted to not knowing anything about China but likes ‘Chineje’ food.
Banaras’s cosmopolitanism is truly marvelous. I have read stories of economic-interdependency of the two communities; Hindus and Muslims and the resultant peace that was maintained despite pressing situations until 1992 when the Babri Mosque fell. One of the most interesting stories I read was about a communal conflict in 1809. An immediate after-effect of the arrests was a unique jail strike by those arrested in the conflict. Muslims prisoners joined the Hindus in protest against the ill-treatment of upper castes in the jail.
Banarasi silk and brocade are world famous. Favoured by the Mughals and the later Indian princes, Banarasi sarees enjoyed the status of being a must have in an Indian girl’s wedding trousseau until recently. These days everything Punjabi and associated is enjoying nation-wide attention. I am no longer surprised to see women wearing Punjabi style clothes at a south Indian wedding with Bhangra music playing in the background. Tele-serials and films have further helped promote this trend. Though everyone in Banaras talks about Banaras silk as dying (just as they say about everything Banarasi), there are some people who have taken Banarasi fabric to the haute-couture. One of them is a Nift (National Institute of Fashion Technology, a highly prestigious fashion institute) graduate from Mumbai, Hemang Agrawal. All of 28, Hemang has taken his father's humble saree business to international fashion houses. Hemang informed me that the weavers are both Hindu and Muslim. Earlier the Muslim weavers outnumbered the Hindus. But now Hindus julahas from neighbouring villages form a majority of weavers. Many Muslim weavers went into other businesses like telephone and photocopying booth or migrated else where in search of 'service'.
I have over a month now been meeting with a few master weavers, small weavers and gaddidaars that our friends recommended in order to buy a saree I want to buy. This particular saree is a museum piece that I saw in an old catalogue. But I found through my interactions with various people that the sarees with the same pattern and technique as seen in the catalogue was popular till the 1970’s. But today only a handful of weavers can weave the kind I want. I met with one of the five recommended weavers. Their product was not only a poor copy in comparison with what I had asked for, but exorbitantly priced. This set me to think why a buyer willing to pay more money than usual does not find product to his satisfaction.
Does it signify loss of skill or simply laziness as Hemang puts it. Is it something more than what is apparent on the surface? The fact that I was buying directly from a weaver meant that I was cutting the share of a broker and the gaddidar wholesaler and the retail buyer. The product I asked for therefore should have been cheaper but it was more expensive than a retailer's. Also, the choice at a weaver is limited. A retailer has many varieties of sarees that come from different weavers.
In the world of saree business there are zari makers, zari traders, yarn makers (separate for the warp and the weft); yarn traders, middlemen (brokers), wholesalers, retailers involved. It takes as many as these people for a saree to reach customers. Many more invisible agents are involved in today’s saree business. Silk from China as opposed to Mysore is preferred by the power-loom weavers, mostly used is fake zari (plastic or polyster) from Surat as opposed to real gold or silver ones from Varanasi, dyeing agents are chemical as opposed to natural and these products travel from all over the country and outside to make this a complex business. A basic weaver working for a master weaver may get Rs. 300 for a saree that sells for Rs. 3000 in the market.
Loss of skill is also because a generation of weavers is now weaving in demand, Punjabi style sarees. A new class of people is embroidering on crepe sarees- something that they were unaccustomed to 30 years ago. Demand for real handloom Banarasi saree woven in Mysore silk with real zari shrunk post the polyester and synthetic revolution. For those who still prefer buying handloom sarees there are the handful of weavers that I was introduced to. Says Momin a weaver, “Madam, change is natural. My grandfather can not ride my motorcycle, the same way I cannot work on his loom, in his style.”
It is bizarre to see countless children on the streets and also the same number of government-run primary schools in Banaras. Oblivious to a tomorrow that my friends in Delhi are obsessed with, here the young boys seem contend singing Bollywood songs with their volume going higher each time a young girl passes them. To question what they are celebrating despite broken roads, no water or electricity supply, lawlessness and chaos is easy to answer. They are celebrating life- the art of living that my friends in Delhi have forgotten.
Today's Banaras is a world I used to know in the small town I grew up in the1980’s. The world where shopkeepers are uncles ji’s, neighbours are brothers and sisters and I am a Didi and not Madam. These people will happily sell goods on loan, feed me when I am hungry, help me settle my home. These are also the same people who play loud music despite my repeated requests, much to my agaony break their old beautiful heritage homes, exploit workers and litter on the streets. This is Banaras: where you can live they way you want to live. This is where tradition has redefined itself, self-pride is almost difficult to comprehend and the ideals of the good and the bad vary from one paan chewer to the other. “As my rickshaw walla once said array Didi yeh Shiv ki Nagari hai, yahan sab chalta hai aur sab maaf hai.” “Good, wrong, right is all okay and pardoned when you live in this city under the protective canopy of Shiva.”
It is not just this sense of nostalgia but this celebration amidst the fatalistic attitude of almost not wanting to know or dealing with tomorrow that disturbs me most. What also disturbs me is that it was peace that I was looking for when I lived and travelled in the finest cities in the world. This peace eluded me in awe-inspiring cities with museums, cafes and art. I am at peace amidst the sounds of raucous jumping monkeys on my terrace and hungry mowing cows outside my balcony, beeping, incessantly honking cars and bikes right in my ears, mixed sounds of Bollywood music and sacred chanting from the neighbourhood, noisy drums accompanying dead bodies and celebratory processions… here in Varanasi it is all mixed as one.
In the world of saree business there are zari makers, zari traders, yarn makers (separate for the warp and the weft); yarn traders, middlemen (brokers), wholesalers, retailers involved. It takes as many as these people for a saree to reach customers. Many more invisible agents are involved in today’s saree business. Silk from China as opposed to Mysore is preferred by the power-loom weavers, mostly used is fake zari (plastic or polyster) from Surat as opposed to real gold or silver ones from Varanasi, dyeing agents are chemical as opposed to natural and these products travel from all over the country and outside to make this a complex business. A basic weaver working for a master weaver may get Rs. 300 for a saree that sells for Rs. 3000 in the market.
Loss of skill is also because a generation of weavers is now weaving in demand, Punjabi style sarees. A new class of people is embroidering on crepe sarees- something that they were unaccustomed to 30 years ago. Demand for real handloom Banarasi saree woven in Mysore silk with real zari shrunk post the polyester and synthetic revolution. For those who still prefer buying handloom sarees there are the handful of weavers that I was introduced to. Says Momin a weaver, “Madam, change is natural. My grandfather can not ride my motorcycle, the same way I cannot work on his loom, in his style.”
It is bizarre to see countless children on the streets and also the same number of government-run primary schools in Banaras. Oblivious to a tomorrow that my friends in Delhi are obsessed with, here the young boys seem contend singing Bollywood songs with their volume going higher each time a young girl passes them. To question what they are celebrating despite broken roads, no water or electricity supply, lawlessness and chaos is easy to answer. They are celebrating life- the art of living that my friends in Delhi have forgotten.
Today's Banaras is a world I used to know in the small town I grew up in the1980’s. The world where shopkeepers are uncles ji’s, neighbours are brothers and sisters and I am a Didi and not Madam. These people will happily sell goods on loan, feed me when I am hungry, help me settle my home. These are also the same people who play loud music despite my repeated requests, much to my agaony break their old beautiful heritage homes, exploit workers and litter on the streets. This is Banaras: where you can live they way you want to live. This is where tradition has redefined itself, self-pride is almost difficult to comprehend and the ideals of the good and the bad vary from one paan chewer to the other. “As my rickshaw walla once said array Didi yeh Shiv ki Nagari hai, yahan sab chalta hai aur sab maaf hai.” “Good, wrong, right is all okay and pardoned when you live in this city under the protective canopy of Shiva.”
It is not just this sense of nostalgia but this celebration amidst the fatalistic attitude of almost not wanting to know or dealing with tomorrow that disturbs me most. What also disturbs me is that it was peace that I was looking for when I lived and travelled in the finest cities in the world. This peace eluded me in awe-inspiring cities with museums, cafes and art. I am at peace amidst the sounds of raucous jumping monkeys on my terrace and hungry mowing cows outside my balcony, beeping, incessantly honking cars and bikes right in my ears, mixed sounds of Bollywood music and sacred chanting from the neighbourhood, noisy drums accompanying dead bodies and celebratory processions… here in Varanasi it is all mixed as one.
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