Back Home in Bombay
After travelling for three weeks (only partially the cause of my livejournal delinquency...), which were perhaps three of the most amazing weeks of my life, I wasn't sure how I was going to feel coming back to Bombay. But it's good to be home. It feels like home here, not least of all because of the amazing friends by which I find myself surrounded. I haven't stopped smiling since I got off the train 24 hours ago.
But about my travels, I'm going to begin with the end, and then tell it from the beginning. So 24 hours ago my friend Dilip met me at the train station. We had just met at the beginning of my travels 3 weeks ago, and, anxious to resume our many threads of conversation from our few days together in Delhi, we walked to a nearby maidan (a grounds, for picknicking and cricket and such) and sat in the dark under the few struggling stars of Bombay's pained night sky and talked about pitcher plants, about protest, and about poetry.
Upon arriving "home" at Sanjay's place, I greeted him and his parents with hugs and shared with them the newspaper articles that had been written about me in Calcutta. **More on this to come. For now, check out these links:
http://cheryl.jdeutsch.com/CherylIndia1.pdf
http://cheryl.jdeutsch.com/CherylIndia2.pdf
They were amazed, and it was good to see them again. Sanjay had two friends over, and we watched a downloaded episode of Star Trek, which was quite amusing. (The show's creators had envisioned computers as small black boxes, featuring several large buttons, that emitted spacey, beeping sounds when data was enterred into them). Anyway, after his friends left Sanjay and I spent a long time talking about my adventures and watching his latest downloads: including a clip of Hunter Thompson on Conan O'Brien, a CNN bit about Buy Nothing day, and a film of images set to a speech by Arundhati Roy, who is amazing and inspiring. Before we knew it it was 4am and I was exhausted. Sanjay owed me a back massage from several weeks ago, so I decided to cash in on that. OH MY GOD can that boy give a back massage! Such slight hands he has, and yet they danced across my shoulders with feather-ey effleurage and rich, strong pressure, willing soreness out of my muscles that I didn't even know I had and sending ripples of delight and relaxation all the way to my toes. I went to sleep feeling like a magnificent symphony had been played across my back. Sanjay and I sleep on pads laid side by side on the floor of his room, and at night the sound of waves crashing against the shore below our open window is the perfect lullaby.
In the morning I woke up early to talk to my poor parents on the phone, who I've been woefully out of touch with for the past 3 weeks. We are planning to meet up as a family in Italy in March, so planning for that trip is underway and exciting. We talked for 2 hours or so and then I did some work on a presentation I have to give in class on Saturday. Around noon I woke Sanjay up to get ready for a meeting with our classmates at one of the government offices, but we soon learned that protests had turned into riots across Bombay, and much of the city was shutting down. In September, in a small village in Maharashtra (the state in which Bombay is situated), a Dalit family (Dalit meaning Untouchable under the traditional caste system) was brutally tortured and murdered. The news was stifled for a month until it made its way into newspapers. Yesterday there were protests in a northeastern suburb of Bombay against the atrocities (Dilip, participating, was arrested and spent a couple of hours in jail with his friends). Today there was more protesting, I think, and at some point a statue of Dr. Ambedkar was toppled (Ambedkar is considered to be the father of the Indian Constitution, was a Dalit himself, and is the hero of their ancient struggle). This offence caused serious rioting. So the meeting of our classmates was cancelled and Sanjay's parents didn't want us to go out, which of course made us want to go out all the more.
Today was the most beautiful day I have yet experienced in India. Finally, the October heat has died down, and everywhere in the city could be felt a nice cool breeze. Apparently, something related to the riots had happened in our neighborhood earlier in the day, so when Sanjay and I ventured out, every shop was closed and there was hardly any traffic on the streets. The sun was shining, and children were playing cricket on the usually busy sidewalk. It reminded me of the first few days of spring in Washington, DC, when every GW student with a brain would skip class and spend the day lying in the grass under the sun. We walked around, running some errands, before departing to head our separate ways. Walking down the sidewalk, though, I realized how nice it was to be together again, and we both, grinning, admitted having missed the other's company.
I headed to the office of two of my other classmates. Maju and Sitaram work for YUVA, which is a youth community organizing NGO that works on behalf of poor people in the areas of slums, hawkers, children, and other issues. It's an amazing organization, and I knew about their work with hawkers before I met them in class. It was Sitaram who invited me to go to Delhi with the organization for the Indian Social Forum... that was the start of my three weeks of travel. So, having made many new YUVA friends in Delhi, I wanted to drop in and say hello. YUVA's intern is a Canadian named Jen, and we had met a while before and have spent a lot of time together. As I arrived at their office, they were all getting ready to leave work early on account of the riots, so everyone was in a very cheerful mood. Like schoolchildren on a half-day or something. I told Sitaram about my experiences in Calcutta, from whence I just returned, and then when all took leave at the train station to head home, Jen and I headed to Bandra for lassi and shopping. Lassi is a sweet yogurt drink that is readily available in most small restaurants. Jen was particularly craving a banana lassi, and so we walked and walked and walked, asking at every restaurant almost if they had banana lassi. But all in vain. Eventually we settled in a small coffee shop and had raspberry smoothies and caught up on 2 1/2 weeks of each others' lives.
Jen was going out for the night, but I was exhausted and so I came home to Sanjay's parents and a wonderful dinner provided by Jaggernath. And here I am now, writing and listening to my favorite music. Actually, Dilip just called. "I heard you were in Bandra today," he said. "How did you know that?" I asked. "Well, Sitaram's wife told me she saw you getting down from the train there."
Really, this city of 15 million never ceases to amaze me. I don't even know Sitaram's wife, which is why she didn't say anything to me. But somehow this giant place is beginning to feel familiar. I have fallen in love with the people of this place, of Bombay and of India, who open their hearts to you like no people I have ever met. It is both humbling and inspiring.
But about my travels, I'm going to begin with the end, and then tell it from the beginning. So 24 hours ago my friend Dilip met me at the train station. We had just met at the beginning of my travels 3 weeks ago, and, anxious to resume our many threads of conversation from our few days together in Delhi, we walked to a nearby maidan (a grounds, for picknicking and cricket and such) and sat in the dark under the few struggling stars of Bombay's pained night sky and talked about pitcher plants, about protest, and about poetry.
Upon arriving "home" at Sanjay's place, I greeted him and his parents with hugs and shared with them the newspaper articles that had been written about me in Calcutta. **More on this to come. For now, check out these links:
http://cheryl.jdeutsch.com/CherylIndia1.pdf
http://cheryl.jdeutsch.com/CherylIndia2.pdf
They were amazed, and it was good to see them again. Sanjay had two friends over, and we watched a downloaded episode of Star Trek, which was quite amusing. (The show's creators had envisioned computers as small black boxes, featuring several large buttons, that emitted spacey, beeping sounds when data was enterred into them). Anyway, after his friends left Sanjay and I spent a long time talking about my adventures and watching his latest downloads: including a clip of Hunter Thompson on Conan O'Brien, a CNN bit about Buy Nothing day, and a film of images set to a speech by Arundhati Roy, who is amazing and inspiring. Before we knew it it was 4am and I was exhausted. Sanjay owed me a back massage from several weeks ago, so I decided to cash in on that. OH MY GOD can that boy give a back massage! Such slight hands he has, and yet they danced across my shoulders with feather-ey effleurage and rich, strong pressure, willing soreness out of my muscles that I didn't even know I had and sending ripples of delight and relaxation all the way to my toes. I went to sleep feeling like a magnificent symphony had been played across my back. Sanjay and I sleep on pads laid side by side on the floor of his room, and at night the sound of waves crashing against the shore below our open window is the perfect lullaby.
In the morning I woke up early to talk to my poor parents on the phone, who I've been woefully out of touch with for the past 3 weeks. We are planning to meet up as a family in Italy in March, so planning for that trip is underway and exciting. We talked for 2 hours or so and then I did some work on a presentation I have to give in class on Saturday. Around noon I woke Sanjay up to get ready for a meeting with our classmates at one of the government offices, but we soon learned that protests had turned into riots across Bombay, and much of the city was shutting down. In September, in a small village in Maharashtra (the state in which Bombay is situated), a Dalit family (Dalit meaning Untouchable under the traditional caste system) was brutally tortured and murdered. The news was stifled for a month until it made its way into newspapers. Yesterday there were protests in a northeastern suburb of Bombay against the atrocities (Dilip, participating, was arrested and spent a couple of hours in jail with his friends). Today there was more protesting, I think, and at some point a statue of Dr. Ambedkar was toppled (Ambedkar is considered to be the father of the Indian Constitution, was a Dalit himself, and is the hero of their ancient struggle). This offence caused serious rioting. So the meeting of our classmates was cancelled and Sanjay's parents didn't want us to go out, which of course made us want to go out all the more.
Today was the most beautiful day I have yet experienced in India. Finally, the October heat has died down, and everywhere in the city could be felt a nice cool breeze. Apparently, something related to the riots had happened in our neighborhood earlier in the day, so when Sanjay and I ventured out, every shop was closed and there was hardly any traffic on the streets. The sun was shining, and children were playing cricket on the usually busy sidewalk. It reminded me of the first few days of spring in Washington, DC, when every GW student with a brain would skip class and spend the day lying in the grass under the sun. We walked around, running some errands, before departing to head our separate ways. Walking down the sidewalk, though, I realized how nice it was to be together again, and we both, grinning, admitted having missed the other's company.
I headed to the office of two of my other classmates. Maju and Sitaram work for YUVA, which is a youth community organizing NGO that works on behalf of poor people in the areas of slums, hawkers, children, and other issues. It's an amazing organization, and I knew about their work with hawkers before I met them in class. It was Sitaram who invited me to go to Delhi with the organization for the Indian Social Forum... that was the start of my three weeks of travel. So, having made many new YUVA friends in Delhi, I wanted to drop in and say hello. YUVA's intern is a Canadian named Jen, and we had met a while before and have spent a lot of time together. As I arrived at their office, they were all getting ready to leave work early on account of the riots, so everyone was in a very cheerful mood. Like schoolchildren on a half-day or something. I told Sitaram about my experiences in Calcutta, from whence I just returned, and then when all took leave at the train station to head home, Jen and I headed to Bandra for lassi and shopping. Lassi is a sweet yogurt drink that is readily available in most small restaurants. Jen was particularly craving a banana lassi, and so we walked and walked and walked, asking at every restaurant almost if they had banana lassi. But all in vain. Eventually we settled in a small coffee shop and had raspberry smoothies and caught up on 2 1/2 weeks of each others' lives.
Jen was going out for the night, but I was exhausted and so I came home to Sanjay's parents and a wonderful dinner provided by Jaggernath. And here I am now, writing and listening to my favorite music. Actually, Dilip just called. "I heard you were in Bandra today," he said. "How did you know that?" I asked. "Well, Sitaram's wife told me she saw you getting down from the train there."
Really, this city of 15 million never ceases to amaze me. I don't even know Sitaram's wife, which is why she didn't say anything to me. But somehow this giant place is beginning to feel familiar. I have fallen in love with the people of this place, of Bombay and of India, who open their hearts to you like no people I have ever met. It is both humbling and inspiring.