Traveling with Books hurt my Head

Photo: Taj Mahal at Sunset, Agra

I become absurdly attached to the characters in the books that I read. Even if it’s not meant to be a sad or emotional book, I have a hard time keeping my eyes dry as I close the back cover and say goodbye to people I’ll never meet, people with whom I became intimate with over the course of reading the pages that brought them to life. Some people never re-read books. Call me overly nostalgic but I re-read books all the time in an attempt to meet up with old pals, remind myself of who I was at the time that I was first introduced to that person, a figment of someone else’s imagination, or a recreation of someone else’s friend/lover/enemy/parent.

On December 18^th in the amazingness that is Bombay, an AIF Fellow lent me a book - The Namesake - about a family, the Gangulis. For reasons that exist between the lines of my life, the Gangulis tugged at my heart throughout my time in Bombay, they appropriately accompanied me to the pink city of Jaipur where I attended an American-Indian wedding of an AIF fellow on the 21st, and joined me back at work in Ahmedabad. A week later I left Ahmedabad again on an overnight train to New Delhi, read the final word of The Namesake on the top bunk of a 3-tier AC cabin, wiped my eyes with my green hat purchased at Cliff’s Variety in SF, and fell asleep in the dark blue sleeping bag gifted to me by my parents before we hiked Mount Blanc together in the French Alps. 30 minutes earlier I had said goodnight to my bunkmates, with whom I had exchanged a few thoughts on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto - an event that chipped the spine of my perennial optimism. On December 30^th I paced around the Indira Gandhi International Airport waiting for a flight that carried my greatest friend from San Francisco, to London, to me. Feeling nauseated all morning, 15 minutes before her arrival I sprinted to a trashcan in the corner of the airport waiting room, in front of men who, finally, were not starring at me For No Apparent Reason: this time, at least, I had undigested food flying out of my mouth.

On the evening of December 31^st I was gifted What is the What, by Dave Eggers, a story about Valentino Achak Deng, one of Sudan’s Lost Boys. 5 hours later, the year 2008 was brought in on a New Delhi rooftop, and by 10am the next morning I stepped off the Taj Express in the tourism-destroyed city of Agra in order to see one of the world’s wonders. I left Agra wondering how much longer the Taj (which was certainly surreal) can withstand the city’s pollution, and where the $20 (US dollars) they charge per head goes if not to help preserve the place. The next 15 days were spent traveling around the magical cities of Rajasthan, but following me throughout my travels – in shadows cast by the Taj Mahal, in the reflection of India’s holiest lake in Pushkar, whispering through the wind in the Thar Desert, hiding behind the blue houses and magnificent fort walls in Jodhpur, peering down on me from the tiled rooms of Udaipur’s City Palace, and starring up at me through the carpet looms in a Kachchci craft village – were Valentino Achak Deng, his childhood friends (William K and Moses), his girlfriend (Tabitha), and his mother- whom even I began to long for. I’ve always loved Dave Eggers’ writings, fallen in love with his characters before, but this was different. I can’t yet tell if these people, not characters, were introduced to me at the perfect or least perfect time: I was traveling in some of India’s more touristy cities (where, for every warm heart you meet there are three more, calloused by Life, waiting to swindle you; where for every mind-blowing historical structure you see there are many more squatter settlements and pavement dwellers), I was still feeling great disappointment in the World over Bhutto’s assassination, and I was reading one man’s account of walking elsewhere to escape a civil war turned ongoing genocide, one day finding himself in the US only to experience more challenges, more pain. Overwhelmed is an insufficient word.

So why am I writing all this? I’m not really sure. My observations and experiences over the past month have given me new things to think about but simultaneously turned my brain to oatmeal. In Pushkar I knowingly got cheated out of 25 US dollars by a man claiming to be a Brahma Priest, but three minutes later I told a street child that I couldn’t give her 10 rupees (the equivalent of 25 cents), a pen, a biscuit, or shampoo. In Bombay my cabdriver happily told me he would kill a Muslim, no problem, because “they have dirty blood”; in Kachchh, a local friend was perversely asked how, as a lower caste, he had managed to court 5 American women; and all the while I was battling my own demons and simultaneously reading about the Gangoli’s struggling to mend generational gaps, and about Valentino’s real life, the horrors of which are repeated daily, as I type, in Sudan. Now don’t get me wrong: I had many positive experiences, I really did, in fact many more positive than negative, more beautiful than ugly. The traveler in me had an exhilarating, fulfilling, romantic time, but the intellectual in me had a sobering, confusing, aggravating one. Someday I’ll learn to merge (or better separate?) the two successfully, but right now, thinking of my travels in light of Bhutto and Pakistan, in light of Valentino and Sudan, in light of Gaza, in light of Kenya, in light of the fact that my homeland’s administration is still trying to find reasons to demonize my parents’ homeland, in light of the fact that the democratic candidates are acting like insecure high-school cheerleaders, and in light of other things, the emotions I’m feeling right now are much closer to anger than anything else.

The redeeming parts of all this, however, is that I was traveling with someone who makes me feel safe and calm deep down in the anxious darkness of my growing gut, and, after the storm within began to settle I returned to the Urban Resource Centers to continue working with hardworking, intelligent, committed slum residents who wake up in their respective homes each morning thinking about how to make their own communities a better, safer, more just place. So even though I’m angrier, even though my optimism is slightly numbed, I trust that the idealist in me will be just fine. I know that the Hindu cab driver who thinks his Muslim neighbor has dirty blood may never change, my conversation with him -- his irrational response when I calmly asked if he thinks a Muslim man feels any different about his family than a Hindu man -- made this much clear. But his two sons, the ones he works two jobs for in order to send to private school in Bombay, it’s the minds of his two sons that I’m concerned about. Will they grow up with the same prejudices as their father? It’s very likely. But maybe somewhere along the way, before it’s too late, they’ll meet someone who influences their outlook; that someone is out there, and s/he just needs to find those proverbial lost boys before another generation squanders its energy in unnecessary hatred. That someone needs to find those boys and talk to them. Right. Now.

Ch-Ch-Ch Changes, Not only in Color

Photo: Mandvi Shipyard, Kutch, Gujarat, India

I must first apologize for my absence, but then promise that you'll be seeing (reading) more of me. I’m done being a bad blogger. But I do have an excuse: of the past 5 weeks I’ve only been consistently in Ahmedabad for 1; I also stopped back in for a few days on Jan 14^th and 15^th for the (most amazing) Kite Festival (I still have sliced up fingers to prove it), but then was off again to Bhuj and Mandvi (in Gujarat’s most-Western state of Kutch) to take a swim in the Gulf of Kutch with all my clothes on and explore a ship yard where men in flip-flops with strong, dry, calloused and cracked hands make big beautiful boats for oil-rich Arab countries. My recent travels still have my head spinning, and my room reflects the going-ons in my brain. Settling back into my routine is also somewhat surreal, as 3 of my closest friends in Ahmedabad have moved (London, Bombay, Kolkata), and half of the staff in my office has shifted to a new site. Everything feels slower, calmer, quieter - but there is a storm brewing inside me which I’ll try to get down in words soon. Once I finish unpacking the bag that carried me (rather than I it), get used to waking up at 5:30am again, catch up on some Bollywood films, call my sister to congratulate her on her engagement and acceptance into her first choice of ophthalmology residency programs (she’s a superstar), buy a new fountain pen, remind myself of why I’m here and what I’m doing at work, I’ll begin the second half of my postings. Sounds like I’ll never post again, right? Wrong. Shouldn’t be more than a couple days. Welcome back.

Two photos

Want to see my face? Here's your chance!

This is me with two of my friends/colleagues: Hiral (URC coordinator and trusty driver), and Shashi (Research/Documentation Manager and trusty sandwichee). That's me on the right, in case you forgot what I look like. In this photo we're heading back to the office after a meeting at one of the Urban Resource Centers (aka "in the field"):

And below is me in the Old City's Sunday market. The old city - it's people, architecture, and general feel - makes my heart bleed. The guy in the middle fixes old shiny watches. I, for obvious reasons, was immediately drawn to him. As we started to chat, his buddies joined the conversation. The photo was taken by my friend and colleague Gauri. She's an architect, and probably the best person in the world to have on hand when walking through the old city. Gauri has done a lot for me since my arrival in Ahmedabad, including, but not limitted to, lending me a bicycle for riding to yoga class, lending me her amazing mother-in-law as a yoga instructor, and endowing me with Vietnamese coffee and an adorable, shiny, single-shot, Italian espresso maker:

Thanksgiving Feast for the Virus in My Belly

One thing I know I'm thankful for in this world is access to safe drinking water. What I'm not thankful for is the stomach infection I acquired in Pune, after 5 days of visiting some friends down there and discovering on the last morning that the tea they served me each day was made from tap water that was boiled for a whopping 30 second. No thanks to that. What I'm also not thankful for is my ego, which allowed me to pass off sharp stomach pains (and other symptoms I'd rather not gross you out with) as 'gas' for a good week and a half, until I woke up one morning knowing it was time to see the doc. So, instead of being in Bangalore with loads of food and other AIFers who adore the day of turkey, I spent thanksgiving in a room that sure didn't look like a doctor's office, but from which I exited with prescribed medicines. Really, though, I'm very thankful for safe drinking water. And I hope you are too.

The seasons, they are changing

Photo: Zoroastrian Cookie Shop, Pune, India

A few years ago I wrote my parents a letter from San Francisco, explaining how odd it felt to be sitting by a sunny window in the middle of December, looking down at shoppers in their summerish clothing. It was my first “winter” in California, and my heart was aching for New England as my life there had revolved around the seasons: The fall was full of rich colors, host to my birthday, the soccer season, and thanksgiving (my favorite). The transition to winter meant cozier times with more holidays and stepping into dark cold nights after sweaty and exhilarating basketball practices. The end of winter meant the Iranian new-year, jumping over fires, and hopes of an early spring arrival. By the time spring actually showed her face I’d already be depressed with cabin fever, but with each warming day my heart (and smile) would expand until it found itself paralyzed by the heat of summer. And the summers, oh, lovely New England summers: going backpacking with the fam, sport camps and swimming holes, pool parties and fort-building in the backyard, homemade and store-bought popsicles, mowing the lawn and jumping in the pool with my clothes on right after, lounging on the deck with stacks of pleasure reading, and warm nights with iced coffee around town. During college my summer days were spent interning and the nights were spent aimlessly exploring whichever new city I was working in. By the end of each summer I’d be ready for school and structure again, promising myself that this year I’d study more, play harder, win championships, spend quality time with the friends I saw less of over the past couple months. The fall would come, adding a new number to my age, and life would start all over again.

I remember that as I wrote that letter from California I was feeling a bit lost in my own mind because everything felt unfamiliar: no poignantly colorful seasons, no winter breaks, no teams. It had hit me that I was writing a letter as an adult, in an office, at work, in a state thousands of miles away from what I knew to be real life. In a way it was transition to true adulthood, let alone California, and when I recognized it as such, I stopped feeling “homesick”. And of course, as the months went on San Francisco started to feel like my own home, so much so that by August of 2007 I wondered why I was leaving for India when everything I could ever want at the great age of 24 was there at my fingertips.

And here I am now, once again thousands of miles from what I had built to be my life in the Bay Area, which was built off my life in New England, but, oddly, nothing feels unfamiliar. My life in Ahmedabad, for the most part, is strikingly similar to my life in the states. Sure, the quality is not as high, but my day to day life it’s quite similar: I get up and exercise, I go to work, get a bit unproductive after lunch, go home around 6, and then I either do something productive (cook, read, write, study) or go meet up with some new acquaintances. The details of course are different: my morning exercise consists of a yoga class and a short jog. Work is definitely really different, but what’s not different is that I’m enjoying it and learning from it. And in terms of the guys I hang out with, instead of their names being Sam or Andy or Evan or Ian or Eeren or Russ, their names are Tajendra, Yazad, Anish, Ankush, Chirag and Bridge.

Outside of my own bubble there are buildings going up everywhere, which was the case in both Amherst and San Francisco before I left; and I have to ignore people begging for money on a daily basis, which I did in Boston, New York, DC, Oakland and San Francisco every day of living in those cities. Now, please, don’t get me wrong, I’m not at all trying to say that Ahmedabad as a city is just like the US cities I’ve lived in; BUT, what I can say is that I think there are certain similarities in the dynamic between urban poor and urban rich no matter where you are, and at the moment some of those similarities, and some of the major differences too, have me thinking hard about the ways I (and we) perceive social issues, especially when we think of development and “extreme poverty” (for example, what’s the productive use of calling the reality of India’s poor “more severe” than that of the US’s urban poor? I understand there’s a difference between the two, but does that difference matter? Why, when I told people I was coming to India, did people gasp at the poverty I'd see, when all they have to do is walk down the street to see something that, in my opinion, is just as severe?). I’ve been trying my best to write more coherently about such thoughts, but so far I’ve just been writing in circles.

And now that I mention it, the fact that I’m even thinking about these things in a productive way, scribbling my thoughts down in my little blue journal, and then attempting to type them up, is perhaps one of -- if not the -- major differences in my own life here. All these social issues that I previously considered and thought about as if they were a side of coleslaw on my plate of life – whether it was one of the many moments I’d step over a urine-soaked man in the Tenderloin district of SF or a short moment of reflection while sitting on my parents’ porch before thanksgiving dinner -- are suddenly in my face; they’re the main course, all the side dishes, the sugary, ghee-loaded dessert, and the filtered water I wash it all down with as well. Maybe it’s because of the projects I’m working on, or maybe it’s just because of my present location on the globe (obviously both), either way I feel more alive than ever for it, because prior to my arrival (or departure) I’d been aching to engage. I was done reading about the development scene from my desk on Sutter Street for the time being, and was instead ready to step out into the hectic, polluted, sometimes harmonious but mostly cacophonous traffic of the world to test out my own brainpower. So far I’ve held the hand of luck and looked both ways, but I’ve got a far ways to go before crossing the street. As for the seasons, apparently they’re changing here in Ahmedabad, but by mid-day it still just feels hot – perhaps a bit less oppressive – and dry to me.

On What I'm Doing

Wow. It's been a bit since I last posted and the weeks are flying by. After a month of living with a family in a tiny apartment and searching for a place I've finally moved into a new apartment with my flat-mate, which is quite a relief. What's especially nice is that, just as in San Francisco, I am able to walk to work from my apartment. Although it's only an 8-minute walk it's highly entertaining as I'm just one of the many parts of traffic here in Ahmedabad: Waterbuffalow, bicycles, Ox, Motorcyles, buses, cows, cars, scooters, pedestrians, rickshaws, stray dogs (so many stray dogs), kids in school uniforms, veggie and fruit wallahs, and the occasional camel all share the road with meon my way to work. And just so you know, my neighborhood is considered a slower residential area.

On top of finally moving my projects at work have taken form and are already keeping me busy. I’ve been ridiculously impressed with my NGO and my colleagues, and am happy to report that the organization I’m with is not one that suffers from inefficiency. My office is a really pleasant place to be: lots of natural light, lots of busy people coming in and out of meetings with community members, tea is served twice a day, lunch is like a big potluck (everyone shares their food, which I love!), and all in all I generally feel like I’m surrounded by productive and interesting people who enjoy their work. I felt the same way about my work in San Francisco, and have decided that as long as I work in an office, it is a pattern I plan to replicate.

So about the NGO itself and my projects: The short of it is that Saath has been working in Ahmedabad’s informal sector since the late 80s. As the country, state, and city has changed around them, so too have their programs/initiatives. All their programs are aimed at improving the standard of living and quality of life of slum residents through health, education, and livelihood schemes, and they’ve also done lots of infrastructure work in partnership with the gov’t. They’ve had a lot of success and what I’ve been most impressed by is their philosophy in using the market as a tool for development (many NGOs are resistant to this concept). The best example of this is a program they initiated 2 years ago, and I’ll try to describe it without going into too many details:

Gujarat (the state I live in) and Ahmedabad (the city I live in) are among the fastest growing areas in India (both in terms of private investment in the area and population). While Ahmedabad has always had a large industrial sector it now has a large and growing service sector. In response to this Saath did a market scan to understand what the changing employment sector and the necessary skills for employment look like. From that they've set up a number of specific job-skill training programs for 18-30 yr. old slum residents, and all the programs (which are split up depending on the sector of employment) include a life-skill module and computer literacy training. They go through this 3-month program and are fed into a corporation/company/etc., and their progress is monitored. Saath has set up centers all around the city, and through the program they’ve already trained and employed close to 2,000 youth, all of whom are from the slums and had dropped out of school. What’s interesting is that the program is not free of charge to the youth (they pay about 500 Rupees for the training – a bit over 10 US dollars), so they are paying for the service that they receive, which gives them a sense of ownership over and commitment to their own success. The idea is that otherwise it’s seen as a charity being given to them, which, it’s been argued, can be dis-empowering.

The project is called “Umeed” (which means Hope), and is only one of the many initiatives that Saath employs. I’m currently working on a grant proposal for this project as one of my smaller short-term projects, so it’s been really great to get an understanding of all the little details that went into starting and creating the program. In the back of my mind I’m constantly wondering whether and how successful projects I come across could be implemented in different contexts (e.g. Bay Area, Iran), or what it is about a given context that allows it to be successful. One thing for sure about this project is that it is a response to the growing economy (so the economic growth and changing labor force are assumed). It’s refreshing to be learning about a project that has successfully used economic growth to reach the bottom of the barrel, and NOT as a trickle down effect but as a proactive initiative that focuses specifically on involving the urban poor in the city’s growth and involves partners at the corporate (employers), state (the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation has already agreed to scale up the project), and civil society level (NGO partners are helping to implement the program). I feel strongly that NGO work should never excuse or completely alleviate the government of it’s social obligations, so when an NGO comes up with something innovative (which involves the private sector to boot) and the government is able to then scale it up (in this case by adding centers all around the city), that’s pretty much an ideal cooperative approach in my mind.

On top of this short-term project I have something I’m working on in the long-term and medium-term as well. My long term project is with one of Saath’s newer initiatives, called the Urban Resource Centers, where I’m working on a report about how the creation of the URCs exemplifies a rights-based-approach to development. In it’s most basic form the purpose of the Urban Resource Centers is to serve as a facilitator between service users and service providers, but it’s a lot more intricate than that (especially in a rights-based context) and will require a post of its own at a later time. What’s great is that the URC team is made up of really interesting people (an urban planner, and an architect who focuses on housing for the poor, to name two), so I’m learning a ton from them along the way.

The medium-term project that I’m working on, which is technically “on the side”, is helping the Community Video Unit (CVU) with their process documentation. The CVU is an arm of Saath that produces films by and for the slum communities about different issues that effect them. They call these videos “Video Magazines”, and they’re screened in strategic locations within the slums (in the local language) so that people are aware of services and civic life around them (the most recent film they’re working on, for example, is a film about the upcoming elections in December, to tell the residents about the candidates and their positions on different issues that will effect them, and information on how to get an election card and who from Saath to speak to about this). The producers are all members of the slum communities, and are part of Saath’s paid staff.

So that’s the lengthier short version of what I’m doing. I feel lucky to be placed with this organization and it’s also nice to have been put to work right away considering that one of my largest fears was that I’d show up and have nothing to offer. I’ll do my best to write more often so that my posts don’t end up being so long, but if you’ve made it this far congrats!

First Generation Born, Second Generation Immigrant, or Just Plain American?

(Photo: Logan Int'l Airport, Pre-departure)

I know that I owe a post about the NGO I’m working for, and the work that I’m doing/will be doing, but I don’t think I’ll pump that one out for another few days or so. Instead, I want to write about something totally unrelated that I’ve been thinking quite a bit about: what it means to be the child of people who moved to the United States from another country. Many of the individuals that I’ve met through the AIF program are individuals who, like me, were born in the United States but raised in a non-American household and culture. Just as I have never been to Iran without my mother, many of them had never been to India without their parents before their arrival this past September. During orientation I found myself quite jealous as they discussed their excitement and curiosity about this new adventure, that is, about having their “own” experience in their parents’ homeland. To put it in one fellow’s own words, one of her goals during this year was to be able to “manage herself” in India. As I bobbled my head in agreement, I pictured myself in Iran, without my mother, and wondered whether I could “manage myself” there without her. I’d like to say yes, and maybe someday I’ll be able to, but in reality I’ve never been presented with that challenge, and at the very least I can comfortably say that it would be difficult from both an emotional and practical standpoint.

At one point I asked one of my Indian-American friends whether she could picture herself staying in India after the fellowship. Her answer fascinated me, and in its essence went something like this: “I couldn’t imagine my mother’s reaction… after she sacrificed so much for me to grow up in the United States, only to find that I’ve moved back to square one.” My immediate internal reaction went like this: “well yea, you’d move back here with all the tools that your education equipped you with.” And then I wondered whether my reaction was an imperialistic way of thinking about moving back to your parents’ homeland, that is, the idea that you have something to offer their former Society, simply because you were brought up and educated in the West. But I also wonder whether a second generation return would in fact be the perfect ending to the immigrant’s tale: not the “American dream” of making it big in the west (where your grandchildren will hardly learn your language, and have a watered down understanding of your story and sacrifices), but the tale of leaving the country you love, sacrificing all that you know for the prospects of a “better” opportunity abroad, to raise your children in an open society with greater opportunities for them, and then -- and here's where the stories diverge -- as they grow older and educated they decide out of their own volition that they want to go back to your homeland and reconnect with the society whose culture they so strongly feel attached to. I know that was a run-on sentence, but is this not an ideal picture for immigrants? Is this not the reverse of a brain drain? And of course, I realize that it assumes a certain level of opportunity in the original homeland that didn’t necessarily exist when the parents left (which seems to be true for a country like India, what with her expanding economy).

There are of course many different kinds of issues for first generation borns (indeed too many to discuss in one blog). Sure, we feel connected to the non-American half of our cultural upbringing, but that doesn’t necessarily translate well across borders -- when I go to Iran the simple reality is that I stand out, for a number of reasons. Many of the surface issues that account for this are easily mitigated with a make-over and a few months of language immersion, but dig a little deeper and it gets even more complicated: being American, among other things, in your parents’ homeland. I’m watching my Indian-American roommate deal with a number of such issues relevant to being a Non-Resident Indian (NRI), and some other people in my program have discussed it in their own blogs (see Curly In India discuss her thoughts on being an NRI).

Another issue that I think lots about is how, having grown up in the States, it will take first generation borns twice the effort to pass down the non-American part of ourselves to the next generation. It’s difficult for me to picture having children who don’t understand Farsi, or who don’t appreciate the amazing and noble nature of their grandparents’ and great-aunts/uncles’ stories and decisions. And I suppose this is part of why so many families – especially first generation families - urge their children to marry people of the same ethnicity, same culture, etc. But if you bring your child up outside of your culture’s society, how many and which of the cultural norms are you allowed to expect them to follow? I ask this question less about my own experience -- which in many ways is an exception to the rule -- and more in the context of conversations I’ve had with some Indian-Americans, many of whom – on top of educational pressures to become doctors, lawyers or engineers - are still explicitly expected to marry within their caste, state (Indian, not American) and religion. As for me and my siblings, the only time my parents mentioned marriage during our upbringing was to tell us to prioritize our education and careers over it – all the while instilling strong values about love and family, and a strong appreciation for our culture (which adds its own implicit pressures). And regardless of whether, given the choice, my parents would do any part of it over again, I must say that my upbringing is perhaps the thing I’m most proud of and thankful for in this life. And yes, I realize how lucky I am to be able to say that.