Return to South Asia: Chapter 1 - Arunachal & Assam

Chapter 1 - Arunachal & Assam

Sunday, November 27 – Tuesday, November 29, 2016

And… I’m off on the first leg of my post-retirement world tour.
Flying all the way around the world to India is a pain in the butt. Mostly because flying around the world would put me back in the US. So let me try this again.

Flying halfway around the world to India is a pain in the butt. When I last did this some 8.5 years ago, my sister and I were travelling for 2+ days straight. This time was not much different. Here’s the rundown: car to Cincinnati airport, flight to Chicago, flight to Tokyo, flight to Delhi, bus from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1, flight to Kolkata, flight to Dibrugarh, and jeep to my accommodations. Count that again – yes, FIVE flights.

Here’s what I learned:

• The food on ANA is really quite good. They also give you real silverware, including a small spoon with which to eat the yogurt cup. I swiped two of the small spoons - not just because they can be harder to find, but also because my Mom used to do this on the Air India flights and this trip is somewhat a return to my roots.
• All Nippon Airways international flights are only half-full for some reason. This meant I didn’t have to deal with a pesky middle-seat occupant for the long legs of my flight.
• All of the domestic flights were completely full, on the other hand. I don’t know why, but I guess I would have expected the opposite.
• ANA theme music is really obnoxious and annoying… and reminiscent of a terribly poorly acted and over-dramatic soap opera. I took a recording on my phone but it didn’t come out very well. But I really don’t know how the flight attendants deal with it. This is probably the main thing I’m dreading for my return flight. I’m not even kidding.
• Korean game shows are as crazy as Japanese game shows. I suffered through 45 minutes of some show called “The Ultimate Challenge” or something, and their guest star was Jack Black. He had to pick from an assortment of objects, each of which would result in a contest that he had to compete against a show host of his choice. These games were silly, like “how many marshmallows can you stuff in your mouth” (Jack easily won that one) and “blow out a candle with one end of a stocking over your head with the other end tied to a pole 4 feet away” (Jack barely won).

All in all, I travelled for 48 hours straight. The longest layover was in Delhi for 9 hours. Fortunately for me, I am now a Priority Pass Select member, a free perk of the Chase Sapphire Reserved card. This got me into a few lounges where I could get some free food. The ATMs were devoid of any cash, and the foreign exchange lines were two hours long – this is all due to the recent decision of the Indian government to cancel all 500 and 1000 rupee notes, but more on that some other time. My point is, without cash, I couldn’t buy any food, so I’m glad I had the Priority Pass so that I could get some for free.

In Delhi, I had to transfer from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1. I quickly learned that my initial plan of taking a leisurely stroll during my 9 hour layover was just a bad idea since the two terminals are 7km apart. That would have been a helluva walk in the smog and traffic, even though it was 4am. Luckily, I found the free bus transfer.

On this short bus ride, I sat next to a young man from Kashmir who lives in Abu Dhabi; he was on his way home to perform the sacred ceremonial rites for his father, who had passed away a few days prior. It was obvious that he was shell-shocked and heart-broken (who wouldn’t be) but we ended up parting ways as soon as we arrived at the terminal. I should have stayed with him longer and had a coffee or something. He could have used the distraction and the company. I didn’t know what to say or how to be helpful and was I guess a bit foolishly concerned about saying the wrong thing. Instead I took the coward’s way out and went on in the terminal when he was going to smoke a cigarette after getting off the bus. It occurred to me that I honestly just didn’t know how to commiserate with him. I’ve been fortunate in my life that I haven’t lost anyone that I was really close to. A big part of this is because we don’t have many multiple generations of relatives in the states. As a result, even though most of my grandparents have passed, I didn’t really know them all that well because they lived in India. I mean I loved them and all, but our worlds and languages were very different and at best I saw them every other year when we were growing up. We also didn’t have any real shared experiences or stories or things like that, nor could we really relate to one another since our life experiences were so incredibly different since my parents both come from relatively conservative smaller-village families. Julia’s mom and my brother’s close friend Benoy are probably the people closest to me that I’ve actually known on a true personal level that have passed away. At the end of the day, I suppose as the saying goes, it is better to have loved and lost than not to have loved at all. True as that may be, I’ve seen how devastating the “lost” portion of that equation can be and I’m certainly not looking forward to it when the time comes. Well, that’s a silly thing to say – no one would be looking forward to that.

After arriving at Dibrugarh, my hosts picked me up and I was able to get a very needed shower (I STANK!!!) and tried to catch up on some sleep even though it was the middle of the day.

Wednesday, November 30, 2016

So I suppose the obvious question is “who are these people who I am staying with and why?” As many of you may know, my pops spends a good amount of effort each year on volunteer medical work, primarily with a TN-based organization called Remote Area Medical (Aasif Mandvi/Daily Show did a killer story on them a few years back – google it!). Over the past 5+ years, he has been helping organize medical expeditions to remote areas of Arunachal Pradhesh in Northeast India. This state borders China to the north and Burma to the east and has long been “forgotten”, so to speak.

The local organization that he has worked with is called Vivekananda Kendra (VK), which is an extremely well-known Hindu-based organization throughout India that follows the teachings of Swami Vivekananda. Initially, I had planned to join my father for a week in Arunachal for one of his medical camps. But for a variety of different reasons, plans changed (all after I purchased my flights) and I would instead be spending time with the education-focused branch of VK, called Vivekananda Kendra Vidyalaya (VKV) and without my father. No worries – those of you who know me well know that I generally roll with plan changes without much issue. Of course, those of you who REALLY know me well know that this “que sera” attitude has a cliff as well, beyond which I can tend to lose it. We were nowhere near that cliff. At all. But I would be lying if I told you that I knew precisely what I was doing here. I was also trying very hard to take an approach of letting the universe guide me and let fall into place what may.

So, VKV manages 36-some schools throughout Arunachal Pradesh, plus scores more in other states as well. The Dibrugarh office that I’m staying with only manages the Arunachal schools, though Dibrugarh is actually in the state of Assam – this is owing to the central location of Dibrugarh given the shape of Arunachal. As a result, all of the schools that I would be visiting are in Arunachal and not Assam. But quite honestly, the idea of going into Arunachal was right up my alley anyway – the area is heavily mountainous and technically part of the Himalayas. I was also excited to see a very different side of India, one that wasn’t chock full of pollution, trash, people, smog, you-name-it. True India is a veritable assault on the senses.

Government schools are readily available, as are a large number of Christian schools. The missionary impact on the Northeast is overwhelming… and unfortunately not always in a particularly good way. But I want to do a bit more research on this and will try and capture more coherent thoughts on it at a later time because it is undoubtedly a very complex topic. Regardless, relative to the local people of the area and their culture, both the Christian and Hindu teachings are invasive. But the approach taken by the two is entirely different. Read any text from Swami Vivekananda (or his predecessor Swami Ramakrishna) and you will likely find excerpts from the Bible, Q’uran, Buddha, and others – this is because Hinduism doesn’t generally view religion as an either/or, and therefore “conversion” as a concept does not really compute. The very term “Hindu” itself was created by outsiders who needed to figure out what to call the spiritual beliefs of South Asians. I oversimplify, I know, but this is the gist of what I’ve learned and experienced here and in my own life (Catholic school, predominantly Christian country, etc.).

VKV schools (in Arunachal at least) are in many cases boarding schools owing to the terrain and difficulty of travel for many students. The organization focuses primarily on underprivileged students showing a high aptitude and the schools provide an extremely high quality education along with a sense of Indian nationalism, something that was very much missing in this region largely owing to the geographic challenges. There is an extremely high demand from the communities to open new schools and to increase admission numbers at existing schools due to the service provided. Families clearly see their kids’ admission into a VKV school as a key mechanism to escape the cycle of poverty that many are mired in. Religious beliefs are completely irrelevant for admission as well, which makes perfect sense given the last paragraph.

Today was a pretty chill day, largely because the office needed to get a permit for me to travel into Arunachal which has pretty strict travel restrictions. This required me to fill out & sign a document and provide a photograph. The routine of the day here at the VKV office was morning prayers at 6am, breakfast at 8am, lunch at 1pm, evening prayers at 6pm, and dinner at 8pm. Outside of that, I was pretty open. Outside of trying to break out of my jetlag, I read a few pamphlets/articles from Swami Vivekananda (very impressive & thoughtful, by the way), took a walk along the mighty Brahmaputra River that ran just behind the office, and that’s really about it.

In the evening, I caught a glimpse of the schedule and wow… it was pretty packed. The original schedule had me traveling with them to see schools all around Arunachal for 12 days. This was concerning to me for two reasons. First, they would be spending their own time, money, and resources to chaperone & drive me from school and to me this appeared to go a bit too above and beyond as far as being respectful of their time. After all, I still wasn’t precisely sure what value they would be getting from showing me around – it seemed to me to be a very 1-sided transaction. Second, I had intended to do some touristy type of things as well in NE India. I hadn’t booked anything yet because I hadn’t had any concrete dates on my VKV visit yet and winging it is quite often how I travel anyway.

After a brief discussion with my chaperone, Pratibha Didi, we agreed that paring this back to 8-10 days might make much more sense for all involved. She sent off a quick e-mail and decided to discuss again in the morning when the coordinator was back in the office.

Thursday, December 1, 2016

My how quickly plans change. Over breakfast, Pratibha Didi and I were discussing the itinerary again when one of the more senior office personnel joined the conversation and asked me why I was visiting so many schools. I shared the background and that I too thought it was a bit much and he quickly cut down the trip to more or less 4 days in Arunachal, saying that I will learn all that I need to after visiting a few schools and that the rest of my time in Northeast India would be better served touring instead. I personally thought 6-7 days would be a more happy medium, but just rolled with his suggestion. And so it was to be.

An hour later, we departed on the newly abbreviated itinerary in an SUV – a Tata Sumo. These Tata manufactured vehicles are apparently excellent in the hillsides due to the very poor roads, which is why basically everyone drives them. In our vehicle besides me and Pratibha Didi was our driver Lil and an Arunachali young fellow (whose name I never caught adequately) who proved to be quite important for navigational purposes. Pratibha Didi was excited to visit these schools as well since she had never been to these particular ones because they are so difficult to get to, but the reality was that this whole drive was assembled primarily on my behalf.

Geographically-speaking, Arunachal basically curves around the northeastern edge of Northeast India. We were headed to the eastern part of the state, the part that borders Burma. As we left the city of Dibrugarh in Assam, the surrounding area was jam-packed with open plains of massive tea plantations. These tea plants are not indigenous, but were brought over by the British – real big surprise there, huh? Tea remains the largest cash crop of the Northeast region by far.

 

As we drove further, we began encountering military checkpoints, and these checkpoints only increased in frequency as we approached Arunachal. Some of the nearby states have had issues with rebels for many years – in fact, the region as a whole was not very open to tourism as recently as a decade ago. There was also a short-lived Chinese invasion into Arunachal a few decades back. Regardless, this being a border region warranted a stepped up military presence and this is also why the tourist permit was required as well. I learned quickly to sit tight and let everyone else answer the questions since my Hindi was limited. I recall at one checkpoint, the guard asked me a question and I barely made out that he was asking where I was from, so I answered “Nagpur” where my parents have a home and he seemed satisfied. I’m not sure that there would have been an issue if I said “USA”, but sometimes police can create hassles for foreigners as a way to solicit bribes. In most cases, we were waved right through upon sharing that we were with VKV. The school has a very strong following and is held in extremely high regard by the population as a whole because of the level of education provided to the underprivileged in areas they serve.

By this point, the landscape began shifting into steeper and steeper mountains. By the time we entered, Arunachal, it felt distinctly like deep Appalachia in Eastern Kentucky where I grew up or in West Virginia, prior to the strip mining travesty of course. Seriously – pull up West Virginia on Google maps and you’ll be shocked at how much brown (actively mined) or smooth green (no trees) you’ll see. I hope that this region never suffers the same tragedy. So far, the lack of infrastructure has made it difficult for anyone to access the interior, including us. We were travelling at a snail’s pace, navigating potholes and ditches while continuing on switchbacks to descend or ascend mountain sides to get to a mountain pass or valley crossing. Appalachia 100 years ago quite possibly did resemble this area today.

One key difference is the flora though – this is clearly more of a subtropical climate with many wild bamboo, palm, and banana-style plants scattered through the canopy. It doesn’t snow in this part of Arunachal, though it can get very cold at night. Additionally, there are yearly monsoons that regularly halt commerce as a whole, washing out roads, triggering landslides, and impeding any travel.

After 6.5 grueling hours, we finally arrived at to the school, located just outside the small village of Niausa in the Longding district of the state. I know this name doesn’t sound very “Indian” and nor would the neighboring district of Changlang. And as you may have guessed, the people of this region share a racial heritage with ethnic Tibetans. The particular tribe in this region is the Upper Wancho. There were a number of people who resembled any number of my Chinese friends back home, though their skin tone generally was a bit darker. Even more than that, there was a strong resemblance to some Native Americans (particularly Inuits)… which actually makes perfect sense since both are descendants of the Mongolian race.

The principal of the school welcomed us as we arrived and we could quickly see the large campus that the school was situated on. The scenery surrounding the campus was stunning – it was separated from the rest of the village in its own little enclave. Beyond just classrooms, there were hostels for the 130 boys that resided on site during the school year, a kitchen, a large multi-purpose room used for dining and prayers, a large multi-purpose outdoor field, and staff and guest quarters.

We were escorted to the guest quarters to drop our bags and have a quick freshen-up. The room was pretty basic with no heating (nowhere I’ve been in Northeast India has heating), squat style toilets, and a very thin mattress on the bed with a mosquito net. Water is supplied from a nearby spring that runs through a seven-stage filtration system. This is one of the few springs in the area, so locals are frequently coming down to fetch water for their own personal use.

In the evening, we joined the children for their evening prayer service. Now, usually when you combine 130 young boys and a prayer service, you get about the most lackluster event ever conceived. But I was beyond floored by this one – not only were a few of the older boys leading the service and the singing, the entire crowd of boys were singing along loudly and enthusiastically. It was enrapturing.

This initial glimpse into the school underscored the experience for the next 2 days – these boys are quite possibly the most obedient, enthusiastic, and respectful group of young’uns to grace this planet. As the boys finished their prayer service and exited the prayer hall, I was showered by a “Good evening, Sir” from each child as they walked by me… which I of course reciprocated with my own “Good evening”. It was like a super-extended version of the “Doctor Doctor” bit in Spies Like Us.

We adjourned to have our dinner. Even though we were in the middle of nowhere, we were still treated to fantastic meal with many different vegetables. The principal explained that the school goes through a great deal of effort to bring in a variety of produce each week from Dibrugarh to ensure that the boys have a nutritious diet. Additionally, the food that was prepared was excellent and I was having a very difficult time turning down seconds (and thirds, in fact). My plan to lose weight in India by having a vegetarian diet was already a failure.

After returning to the rooms for the night, our driver Lil found that his bag was missing from his room. A search party was quickly organized and they were able to retrieve the bag. Unfortunately, his wallet and cell phone remained with the thief. We were all a bit relieved that the thief didn’t have a well-planned attack, otherwise he would have bypassed the Lil’s room in the front and gone directly to my backpack. From this point forward, we ensured that the rooms were always locked and I kept all of my valuables directly on my person as well even though thefts like these are generally a very obscure occurrence. This robbery was a clear disappointment to the school and those in the local community as they learned of it – they were very clearly embarrassed that this would happen in their tight knit community and vowed to track down and discipline the thief and return the remaining items. I never heard whether or not they found the items, but I know Lil was pretty upset about his cell phone – he had spent a sizable amount of money on it and his earnings are not necessarily substantial. I wouldn’t be surprised if he had been saving up for it for 6 months.

Friday, December 2, 2016

Our wake up time in the morning was 6am. This is actually late – normally, the boys wake up at 5am but because daylight is at a minimum, the schedule shifts to 6am for the month of December. It wouldn’t have mattered to me much because I wasn’t really sleeping very well anyway. The beds are definitely not what I am used to at all since I clearly live in a Western princess world.

Following the morning prayer service, Didi and were each given a pail of hot water heated up in the kitchen by the wood burning stove. This hot water would be mixed with the cold water piped into our bathrooms so that we could have some additional comfort for our bucket showers. This is definitely not a service that anyone else enjoyed, including the principal.

What’s a bucket shower you ask? Well, if you think about how life used to be before the days of indoor plumbing, a shower head was generally not in the cards for the bulk of society. So you have a bucket of water and a pint-sized cup with a handle on it to dispense the water from the bucket. After pouring a few cups of water over your head and body to get it wet, soap up and then pour more cups of water to rinse off. And that’s a bucket shower.

Breakfast was next. I watched as the boys brought their dishes into the dining hall, received a serving of food, and sat in their places on a rolled out mat on the floor. They all waited obediently until the last boy sat down with food, then recited a brief meal prayer (led by one of the older ones), and then chowed down. When complete, they each washed their own dishes and a few of the boys remained behind to clean up the dining hall. Once again, they did all of this efficiently and without prompting from an adult. In a sense, it seems that they reveled in the structure and joint ownership of it all. Just fascinating to watch, really.

In a clear attempt to unintentionally embarrass the kids, the principal instructed the marching band to do an impromptu show for us on their multi-purpose field. The reason this caused concern among the kids is that they had not practiced yet this year, and therefore were completely winging it. Additionally, they didn’t really have a band instructor – but an instructor was on-site 4-5 years ago and since then the older kids have just been teaching the younger kids.

The performance was by no means stellar or flawless – the instruments were not played in sync with one another, the marching was not in rhythm, and any number of other nitpicky items that my old friends from high school band would spot in a moment. But what was absolutely flawless was their attitude and determination. I can’t imagine a group of kids back home pulling off the same thing with no real instruction and no recent practice. Keep in mind that a third or more of the students in the school are in the band… so it’s not like it’s only the musically-inclined elite of a class either.

If you’re wondering why in the world this school of kids would bend over backwards for me, I share in that wonder. But as I quickly learned, the school is so remote and difficult to get to that they rarely have any visitors at all, let alone someone who lives in a different country. The principal told us (and one of the other schoolteachers confirmed) that our visit would likely be one of the highlights of the school year.

While the kids attended their school classes during the day, the principal joined us for a short drive around the area. First, he took us to the local village king’s hut and community chambers. Each village has its own form of government and community decision-making. Of course, this doesn’t replace the police force or state government, so I’m guessing that the newer Indian government structure has figured out how to co-exist with the older community government structure. In any case, it was fascinating to learn how the community really manages themselves essentially as a very large family unit, sharing in food and resources, helping each other build houses or do repair work, and so forth.

We continued on the road for about an hour and neared the Burma border. In recent months, the border has become a bit more dangerous, so we didn’t venture close to the gate. Instead, we stopped when we could see the Burmese/India border gate from across the valley. As with most borders, the two sides don’t really look all that different. But one thing’s for sure, if I ever moved to this area, I would make sure to proclaim loudly “I can see Burma from my house!”
Note: the white building in the distance is the India-Burma border crossing station.
 

After returning back to the school and having a quick lunch, the students played or cheered for the first intramural football match of the year on their very uneven wonky slightly askew multi-purpose field. All of the students are randomly split across four teams, and they play one another throughout the school year. Being the honored guest, I got to kick the ceremonial first kick of the first game as well. I didn’t get to keep the soccer ball as a keepsake, though not from a lack of trying. Of note, Northeast India is the only region fascinated with football (what normal humans call soccer) instead of cricket. And we know that cricket is not really a sport anyway, since you know… the Brits are actually semi-decent in it. The Brits are generally not good in anything athletic. It took forever for that British lad to climb atop the ATP rankings in tennis and the only other strong Brit athlete I can even think of is that Ben Jonson dude who was stripped of Olympic Gold due to doping. QED: cricket is not a sport. I love me some scientific method.

After the evening prayer service in the multi-purpose room, I gave a presentation to the kids on my trip to Antarctica from some pictures & videos that I had found on my travel laptop (note: it’s a very old 1^st gen Surface RT – I ain’t that fancy). The only video available in this multi-purpose room was a 20” TV, so the kids huddled around it as I scrolled through the pictures and tried to describe the animals, weather, and geography of the Falklands, South Georgia, and Antarctica.

I know my P&G friends are cringing right now at the thought of me giving a presentation to kids. This is because my presentation style mimics my writing style in that I generally have a lot of fun with it and intersperse random (yet strangely and loosely related) pop culture references throughout. Rest assured, I did not do this here – the kids have enough trouble understanding my English as it is.

Following the pictures/videos, the kids finally started asking me some questions. The principal and I had been asking the kids if they had any questions for me, but the most they could muster was “Tell me about America”… which obviously is too broad a question. They were eager to hear from me as they have had extremely little interaction with anyone outside of India (other than missionaries, but that’s a much longer story). The teachers also asked some really good questions as well and we got into some interesting conversations about differences and similarities between the cultures, and of Indians living in the US. The interesting thing about this discussion is that my experience as an Indian in the US while not rare is certainly not the most common, since most Indians in the US live on one of the coasts among a much more diverse community. I was trying to explain this as well, though I’m not sure if it came across correctly.

Saturday, December 3, 2016

After morning prayers, showers, and breakfast, we took leave of this magnificent campus and headed to the next school on the list: Baraf girl’s school. This school used to be a government school and was taken over by VKV at the government’s request. It’s a very small school for girls only from 6^th – 8^th grades and consists almost entirely of school drop-outs. I guess the thought was that with stronger teachers and converting to a boarding school, these girls could get back on track.

The distance to Baraf as the crow flies is not actually that far, but given the mountains, lack of spanning bridges (thankfully) and the absolutely horrendous unpaved pothole-ridden roads, it took a good 6 hours. Along the way, we drove through a part of the mountain that suffered from a massive landslide a few months back. Since this is the only route into this particular valley, the villages contained within were isolated for a few weeks while the government worked to carve a new path. In some areas, landslides are almost an eventuality because the forests have been cleared. And as everyone knows (or should know), rampant deforestation results in erosion (a landslide is just a rapid erosion event). It’s almost like human choices actually have a concrete impact on the surrounding environment. Whoulda thunk?

At Baraf, we were greeted by the teachers at the school, all of whom are from the surrounding districts (not common for VKV schools) and stay there locally at the school. This school houses about 120 students on site, and mixes them across the three dorms (vs separating by age) – this is a bit of a unique twist at this school. Because the school focuses on girls who were dropouts (some had actually never been to school), they split the 6^th grade group into A and B sections so that they could better cater to the incoming students’ needs.

Baraf school in the valley

The school was situated right at the base of a valley and had an even more phenomenal vista than the Niausa school. Owing to the tall mountains on either side, the actual amount of sunlight during the day was quite limited. As dark quickly fell on us, the temperature dropped as well and soon we  were all huddled around the kitchen fire seeking warmth before long. Facilities at this school seemed to be a bit more limited and slightly more run down than at the Niausa school as well. But the staff clearly made all efforts to make use of what was available to them to provide the kids the best school/life education they could.

As we got settled in our guest rooms for the evening, the students began their PE session. This week, however, they had special guest – a local Judo champion was instructing the group on judo moves during their PE hour each week. We got to watch from the side as the girls enthusiastically soaked up the instruction and then proceeded to practice kicks, punches and then enthusiastically and repeatedly throw their classmates on the ground. Regardless, I thought it was great that the school was teaching them a bit of self-defense.

During evening prayers, the girls here were just as boisterous as the boys were at the other school and again I watched with a bit of amazement. I guess I’m a bit used to kids back in the states not really paying attention or behaving as perfectly. I’m sure that some element of this was a show, but there was very clearly a difference vs what you could expect at a Western boarding school.

After evening prayers, the girls from each grade dressed up and did a traditional dance for us and the rest of the students and this was really cool to see. They demonstrated just as much enthusiasm for this show as they did with their prayers. And then it was our turn… I loaded my pictures & videos on one of the teachers’ laptops and all of the girls huddled around. Because their English skills were much more limited, one of the other teachers had to translate for me as I described where my trip went and showed them the different types of penguins and seals. There were lots of oohs, ahhhs, and giggles.

The Q&A session that followed floored me a bit. These girls asked a LOT of tough questions… though interestingly enough they were asking me science questions, like “why is global warming happening?” and “what is going on with the ozone layer” and “what should we do about it?” I somehow managed to remember enough about how ozone is depleted to get through an answer… if I wasn’t correct, hopefully I sold it well. I also tried to specifically relate my answers to activities that they likely see in their area – burning trash, cutting down trees, and so forth.

Our dinner was served around the kitchen fire. The cook had whipped up a great pumpkin sabzi dish using vegetables grown in their garden. And by the way, when I say kitchen fire, I really mean kitchen fire. All cooking here is done over a wood fire in a well ventilated kitchen. The stove area is essentially a massive concrete block (heat retention) with a cutout for the fire. Given the cold temperatures, this kitchen tended to serve as a place to congregate as well. Even the local cat could be found huddled next to the fire to get warm.

Sleep this evening was very challenging… it was crazy cold and the repeated delta between my mattress back home and the beds here was quickly catching up to me. As I write this a week plus later, it occurs to me that I probably should have devised some sort of a Mattress Comfort Evaluation System (MCES, patent pending) to adequately evaluate the comfort of said mattressi (plural for mattress) that I would grace with my girth throughout this trip.

Sunday, December 4, 2016

After morning prayers, a shower, and breakfast, we took our leave of the school and headed to the nearby village of Laju, perched atop the nearby mountain. Laju is also where the majority of the girls from the school grew up. We walked around the village a bit and I got a better view of how the homes were constructed – largely from bamboo and fan palm leaves. The community is able to get the resources they need from the surrounding forest. Pratibha Didi mentioned that the villages largely are self-sustaining and happy as they are – they have everything they need. Yet, these villages would also very clearly be categorized as poor by most standards.

I suppose that poverty as a concept is very relative – by which standard are we classifying underprivileged? If a community can acquire both food and shelter from the surrounding environment, is there really a need to bring in packaged goods from the West or remainder of India? You could argue that the packaged goods are decreasing the quality of life in the form of waste and in the form of reducing work for local populations to grow their own food or make their own clothes. What’s to say that a community can’t or shouldn’t remain self-sufficient? Do they really need TVs or automobiles?

I think the obvious answer is that it should be up to the community. But I think it’s human nature to want something you don’t currently have. On the flip side, in our Western society, there’s very clearly a pronounced movement in the more recent generations to go “back to basics” with local-sourcing of foods, hand-crafted items, or small batch products. I know that’s not the same thing, but it makes me wonder where the happy medium is, and also makes me a bit sad that in a sense, we can’t just leave well enough alone sometimes. Marketing and capitalism actively create desire and “need” where it doesn’t already exist… and those actions are frequently morally bankrupt.

At the end of the day, is the measure of success how many material things you can acquire or is it something more subjective like “happiness”? This trip so far is reaffirming many of the questions I have had in living in a Western society that thrives on capitalism, with no end in sight. It also reaffirmed a few of the reasons I left my job as well. I wish companies like P&G would direct more resources to finding permanent alternatives to something like the temporary Swiffer dusting cloths or diapers or whatnots – this would be FAR better for the environment, but this approach is worse for the stock price and money wins in the end. The counter-argument is that consumers will demand permanent alternatives if that’s what they really want, and if this is so, the company would need to develop such an alternative or get beat to the punch from someone else. The reality is that there are lots of other games being played to make this difficult (marketing, collusion, lawyers, etc.) too. I guess I found it too difficult to understand why the “do the right thing” mantra wasn’t extended to society as a whole. That’s asking a lot, and the overwhelming majority of other companies don’t do that either, so I don’t fault P&G at all… I suppose it’s just wishful thinking.

Well, that was a helluva sidebar, huh?

One last interesting point… a bit later, Pratibha Didi and I were discussing this very thing (potential benefit of isolationism from a happiness standpoint) with one of the local Baraf school teachers. And then it occurred to me that isolationism due to geography is very close to being a non-issue in the very near future – I explained how Amazon was actively working on deliveries by drone and told them that they could likely expect the same within 5 years. Delivery of a small item could take 15 minutes by drone instead of 3 hours by car since the distance across a valley was not that great.

So back to the trip… today we were headed to another part of Arunachal to visit a school in the town of Kharsang in the Changlang district. The geography of the region is such that we actually had to exit Arunachal into Assam and then back to Arunachak to get there. Net: there were lots of military checkpoints during this journey. Along the way, we drove through a national forest (where there were supposedly free-roaming elephants), drove by a massive coal mine, and along numerous tea plantations.

The most amusing part to me was the road signs as we were leaving Baraf aimed at getting drivers to be cautious and drive slowly. The road people have quite the sense of humor with signs saying things like “Let your insurance expire before you do”, “Drive Slower, Live Longer”, or the somewhat random “Border Roads Organisation: Connecting Hearts and Cultures. We also build roads and bridges.”

Okay. Maybe the lack of contact with any Westerners or pop culture has temporarily impacted my sense of humor a bit. Or maybe you just had to be there. I’m guessing it’s the former because the other vehicle inhabitants didn’t seem to find it that funny.

All in all, today was a good day to be travel day since Sundays are generally a day of chores and free time for the kids at the boarding schools. Had we stayed in Baraf, we wouldn’t have been able to see or do much at the school. The teachers may have been robbed of a well-deserved day off as well by having to attend to us. The teachers are working virtually non-stop since they are the only adults at the school, really. On top of that, a few of them are married with kids – their spouses and children do not live with them on the school grounds but in their own villages many kilometers away. It’s really quite a huge sacrifice that the teachers accept.

As we arrived at the Kharsang school in the late afternoon, it was very clear that this was different than the other two schools. This school was located pretty close to a reasonably sized town, they housed 100+ boys and had another 250+ non-boarding students. As a result of the size, the school was quite a large campus, having multiple multi-purpose fields (Ed note: quantity of multi-purpose fields is the widely-accepted scientific standard of boarding school comparison). Our guesthouses were quite nicely appointed as well – Pratibha Didi’s even had a living room and kitchen area. There was also active construction going on with creating a new dining hall for the boarding students and a new multi-purpose hall.

Following the evening prayer service, the principal introduced me and Pratibha Didi to the students and I got to present the pictures & videos of Antarctica again. The kids and teachers asked me questions and I responded as best as I could. This time, the questions were less about scientific matters and more about life in the US vs life in India. I did my best to draw out the comparisons. There were questions about our recent election, why this happened, and what this means for the country and US-India relations. Clearly, I don’t know what this means for US-India relations, so I shared as much. Regardless, it was a bit nerve-wracking to be put on my toes like that and try to come up with reasonably well thought out answers as much as possible with little time to reflect. All in all, I think I did fairly well all considering. If anything, I probably could have made it clearer that these were all my opinions and not necessarily facts, but the kids were having enough difficulty understanding what I was saying as it was.

 

Monday, December 5, 2016

In the morning, we participated in morning prayers, showered and had breakfast in what has become the standard schedule through this week’s experiences. Before too long (and only about 15 hrs after arriving), we took our leave and headed back to home base in Dibrugarh. Along the way, we made a pit stop at a VKV in the town of Tinsukia where we picked up Sarita Didi, who would be my chaperone for the next few days.

During this final leg of the trip, I got to ride shotgun for the first time so far. I had just the night before remarked to the principal at the school in Kharsang that for as many animals as there are in the road, somehow they seem to coexist with this crazy traffic and that I had yet to see any roadkill. And what happens? Today on the ride back, I saw a dead dog in the road. And not 30 minutes go by before I saw a dead lamb in the road. I guess this shouldn’t have surprised me, but my heart still ached.

I think the massive population of stray dogs in particular in India would be a major issue for me if I were ever deciding to move to India. So many of the strays have very clear health issues: from malnutrition to parasites to mange to you-name-it. One of Julia’s friends had the same heartache when she visited Bali many years back and she and her husband ended up moving there and starting an organization to provide vet services to strays, actively trap-and-release strays for sterilization, and work to educate the public on pet care and ownership. I know Julia and I would both be very tempted to do the same. Actually, we kinda did just that when we moved to a Boston neighborhood with a major feral cat problem, including its very own stereotypically elderly cat-hoarder lady.

After arriving to Dibrugarh, my first priority was the immense sack of laundry I had accumulated over the past week. The office had an old washer/dryer combo machine that had been a bit jerry-rigged but we figured it out. Since all of my clothes are made of synthetics, they were all virtually dry after the spin cycle. Cotton clothes really suck when you travel.

The rest of the day was pretty chill. I had been without any sort of interwebs access for the past 5 days and I had some catch-up to do. Not to mention checking in on my darling Julia who is braving the freezing temperatures in Cincinnati with the two dogs without me. She deserves a ton of credit here. I can’t emphasize that enough.

Tuesday, December 6, 2016

After a filling breakfast, Sarita Didi, Lil and I headed out this morning to the island of Majuli. Yes, an island… in the middle of India hundreds of kilometers away from any coastline. The island is in the middle of the mighty Brahmaputra River and at one point was about 1250 square kilometers in size. Erosion over the past decades has reduced the primary island size to about 1/3 of that, but still big enough to hold the title of world’s biggest river island. Every year, Majuli is crowned during an award ceremony, wears a sash and tiara on the catwalk, and then gets felt up by Donald Trump.

After about 5-6 hours of driving, we arrived at Nimati Ghat, the ferry dock from which we would cross the river. The ferry was nowhere to be seen, but for some reason I had been expecting a large vessel that could carry a good number of people, cars, and trucks – similar to what I travelled on in Argentina and Chile three years back. Then the ferry arrived and I remembered I was in India. This little dinghy may as well have been a pontoon boat. Most of the travelers were coming on motorcycle or scooter – these were driven onto the roof and expertly stacked side-by-side to eliminate any airspace like a life-size motorcycle Tetris game.

Next came the cars… and somehow they managed to get 5 cars aboard this glorified raft. There are no railings or curbs to guide the cars – the driver of each car basically follows the hand signals of the boat people to know when to stop accelerating. Two inches more and there would be certain plummeting into the river for the vehicle’s untimely demise. Fortunately, the drivers and ferrypeople are highly trained professionals all holding certificates of excellence from the Ferry Operators Institute of India (FOII). I made sure to check expiration dates on their certificates before boarding. It’s standard basic ferry-boarding protocol, really.

As we motored over to the dock on the island, the passengers spontaneously broke out into a rousing rendition of Dolly and Kenny’s “Islands in the Stream”, complete with harmony and a dedicated section of “uh-huh”ers. If we had a few more minutes before docking, the vibe of the crowd was such that we would have split into 3 groups and started singing in rounds, but alas such merriment was not to be.

In actuality, Sarita Didi and I chose not to sit in the cramped passenger staging quarters below deck and instead rode the ferry trapped in the car. I say “trapped” because the cars and motorcycles were so tightly packed that you couldn’t fit a sardine between them. Of course, we didn’t know this until AFTER we decided to stay in the car… bur fortunately neither of us required usage of the almost certainly poorly-sanitized on-board restroom during the trip either.

After arriving at the school and meeting with the principal, we decided to do a wee bit of sightseeing before dinner and any other evening activities. The major tourist attraction on the island apparently is a bunch of temple sites called satras. There are something like 22 satras remaining on the island after erosion claimed several dozen over the past few decades. The satra we visited had living quarters for the life-long disciples surrounding the main temple in the center. Our guide knew one of the disciples and we entered his home and had a cup of chai. After a brief discussion on who-knows-what because I was unable to follow the conversation at all, I smiled and said Namaste and Thank You as we took our leave and met the principal and our car at the satra gate.

I figured we were on our way back to the school. Instead, we ended up going to a different disciple’s home just outside the gate where a fresh cup of tea awaited us. The principal and the disciple dude were discussing who-knows-what again while I looked around and tried to appear interested. At long last, we took our leave, I politely smiled and said thank you and Namaste, and we got into the car to go back to the school.

Or so I thought. Within a few minutes, we pulled over and got out and went to see the local police inspector (equivalent to the local sheriff in a US town). This fellow was very polite and fit the perfect Bollywood image of a police inspector decked out in his green inspector uniform. We were offered and accepted a new cup of tea as well… because we clearly hadn’t had enough tea today yet (not to mention that declining could be construed as rude). He was tall and thin, reasonably built, had a thick inspector mustache, wore inspector spectacles, and I was constantly fighting the urge to stand up and blurt out a sentence starting with a thick “IN-SPEC-TURRR…” reminiscent of those old-school Hindi movies. Meanwhile, the principal and the police inspector dude were discussing who-knows-what again while I looked around and tried to appear interested. At long last, we took our leave, I politely smiled and said thank you and Namaste, and we got into the car to go back to the school.

And yes, the ends of the last two paragraphs were identical because the encounters may as well have been identical. In both cases, I had no clue what was going on. The principal seemed content to talk for a long period of time without coming up for air. And then every once in a while, there was a random uncomfortably long pause in discussion during which I was always tempted to interject something to break the silence like “How ‘bout them Mets?” or regale them with a tale starting with “You know, funny story…”. But I didn’t do that, mostly because I couldn’t figure out how to translate “Mets” into Hindi.

After finally returning to the school and having dinner in the kitchen, we headed out to our rooms for bed. Except this school didn’t really have many guest house rooms available (very few kids boarded here). So Lil and I went a few blocks away to a stay in a “hotel” room – some seemingly random kid emerged from an alleyway showed us to the room and produced a few bath towels and then disappeared again. The room was very small with two single beds with extremely thin mattresses and a filthy bathroom. Lil doesn’t speak much English and my Hindi is terrible so we basically just smiled at each other before hitting the sack. While I suppose it’s technically a hotel, it’s a bit thin on the hospitality quotient. This place would be equivalent of a Motel 6 that had been shut down for a few years and had never been cleaned. Actually, that’s probably being generous.

Wednesday, December 7, 2016

I had a surprisingly decent sleep – my guess is that this was owed to a poor night’s rest the night before and the long travel day and not to the suspect conditions of the prior evening’s sleeping arrangements. I suppose the extended conversations in Hindi that I sat in on with those random people the night before was quite mentally taxing in itself.

Lil and I had a quick chai at a local chaiwallah before returning to the school. The chai was crazy hot… I’m talking McDonald’s burning of the crotch hot. And as you’d expect from such a chai, it was served in the world’s thinnest plastic cup, all but assuring that you could neither hold it nor drink it without burning off some skin. It takes some real talent to pull off a double like this.

We met with Sarita Didi at the school for breakfast and I continued my new food trend of asking the cook to reduce my plate by half. A perfectly reasonable portion arrived in front of me and all was well. From there we drove to two additional satras to check them out.

The first satra was quiet and serene and we ran into a disciple who had really solid English skills and was able to explain how the satras were established and a bit more about the disciple system. Basically, being a disciple is voluntary of course – the idea of forcibly making to live an unmaterialistic life and focus on attaining a higher level of consciousness is a wee-bit hypocritical. But often the disciples arrive there from poorer families who cannot provide for the family and turn over a son to the chief guru of a satra. The satra then feeds, clothes, and educates the child into adulthood. From there, the young adult can leave the satra or decide to stay and remain on the satra property and be part of the community who maintains the facility (kind of like a monastery I suppose) while focusing on their personal spiritual development… at least I think that’s how it works.

Of particular noteworthiness was a small puppy who came and sat with me during the discussion. Many of the dogs in this region remind me of my big guy back home, Arthur, because of their tails that curl up. I guess this makes sense since Arthur is a Tibetan Mastiff and we are quite close to Tibet... but in any case, I thoroughly enjoyed playing with the puppy for a good 30 minutes while we chatted and enjoyed a cup of tea. I miss my Barfur (one of our many pet names for Arthur).

The next satra we went to was a part-time satra in that it was basically open only for celebratory events but remained closed the remainder of the year. As such, there weren’t a ton of disciples that really lived there on-site… probably just 1-2 to clear the weeds don’t grow and any trash inside the temple is relocated appropriately to the open street or something. The only reason we came to this satra is that the disciples here make masks from straw and mud and cowdung that look surprisingly realistic because the mask jaw will open and close with the wearer’s jaw. There were a fair number of white tourists here too – there were two white folk on the ferry with us, but other than that, these were really the first white folks I had seen in nearly 10 days. I had a sudden longing to strike up conversations and speak with a few fellow Americans just to regain a bit of “normalcy” if you want to call it that, but the opportunity didn’t really present itself. And then I overheard one of the European white tourists lightly complain that the group of American tourists bought all of the souvenir masks and there was no inventory left.

After returning to the school, the principal assembled the 10^th graders in a room and set me up with a laptop and projector for my Antarctica presentation. I heard later that the presentation was a hit with the students here as well. Word even got to the science teacher who found me over lunch and thanked me for giving an evolution example in my talk about how fur seals and elephant seals shared a common ancestor with dogs, but evolved very differently with their hind flippers. I guess it’s also a bit interesting in itself that I recalled as many facts as I did having not prepped or reviewed any fact-based sources of information in advance.

With a bit more preparation and advance understanding, I would have done a lot of things differently. Unfortunately, the hardworking souls at VKV were struggling to have time to respond to an e-mail in advance, let alone spend time with me to maximize our efforts. That I even had an experience in Antarctica (and my photos and videos with me) was purely a fluke – when I realized how special they were treating my visit in Niausa, I scrambled to try and create something/anything to hopefully reciprocate in a sense and give something that the kids could actually learn from. If I were to do this again, I would buy a small projector to bring with me and prepare 2-3 presentations in advance, including one focused on everyday life in the United States / Western civilization showing some of what we consider to be basic or mundane (like grocery stores, traffic, normal-sized homes, etc.).

We were running a bit late on time and were going to miss the scheduled ferry that we had planned to take. Thinking quickly, the principal made a few phone calls and arranged for us to reserve one of the three vehicle spots on a smaller ferry from a dock further away from us. This ferry was less than half the size of the glorified raft that were took on the way over and absolutely packed to the gills. And to make it even more exciting, the ferry ran out of gas on the way to the mainland dock and had to coast in… literally banging our way into things, up to and including somehow pulling a 180 degree turn maneuver to get us settled in place.

At one point, people on the mainland realized what was going on and EVERYONE ran down to the banks to grab on to a rope tossed by a dude on the ferry to try and slow us down so that we didn’t drift off further downstream. And at another point, everyone on the ferry crouched down in a faux emergency landing position bracing for impact. It was a bit surreal, to be honest. Fortunately, there was a full safety tutorial by the ferry attendant as we departed the island letting us know of these emergency procedures along with the proper means of exiting as well as how to properly fasten a seat belt.

By now, we were REALLY running late and Sarita Didi missed her bus back to Tinsukia. So we dropped her off in a nearby town and she went to the local VKV to be put up for the night while Lil and I continued down the road towards a hotel outside of Kaziranga National Park.

Lil must have been a bit tired, so he asked me to pull out my speaker and play some music. After going through the only three Indian songs on my iPod, I got to treat him to some fantastic old American music. We were graced by old hits such as Britney’s “Oops I Did It Again”, Mary J’s “A Family Affair”, and Juvenile’s “Back Dat Ass Up”. For the last one, I was cracking myself up silly wondering whether or not he was catching any of the ridiculously lewd lyrics.

We arrived at the hotel at nearly 9pm. More frustratingly for me, this hotel didn’t have Wi-Fi and so I couldn’t send a note to anyone letting them know of my whereabouts. I really need to get a working cell phone in India. We ended up getting treated to a wonderful meal in our room though, and it was HUGE. I probably ate twice as much as I should have.

Thursday, December 8, 2016

Today’s activities were primarily an excursion to Kaziranga National Park. We were picked up early in the morning by an open topped old crusty green safari-ish jeep. After a few minutes, I noticed that the jeep had only one working gauge: the engine temperature. That said, I suppose if you had to pick a gauge to be working, engine temp should be it. You can learn the vehicle enough to manage around both speed and gas tank fullness (or emptiness if you’re a pessimistic type of person). But unless you’re stopping the car every 15 minutes, popping open the hood, and willing to repeatedly burn your fingers by touching the engine block, you’re pretty much SOL on engine temp with a broken gauge.

Lil and I were the only ones in the jeep, so we had our own private tour. Given the hand that life has dealt him, this was really a bit of a luxury for Lil and his excitement showed. After picking up an armed guard for safety at the ranger’s station, we proceeded into the park.

There was an option to view the park riding an elephant, but I quickly shot that idea down. Lil was disappointed but I tried to explain in my best Hindi/English blend that the elephants are treated poorly and beaten into submission at a young age. This being a national park focused on conservation, I suppose it’s possible that they use other methods, but I didn’t want my money contributing to it nonetheless. And dear readers, please make the same choice if/when you are presented with such an option in the future. While I’m on the topic, dear readers – please stop taking your kids to circuses. These places are even worse with respect to animal treatment and every damn one of those supposed “lion tamers” deserves to be mauled in front of a live audience. Twice.

Soapbox complete.

In the park, the jeep took us on a standard quick 2hr driving tour as a caravan of jeeps followed a well-worn trail. We had entered the park from the Western entrance, which somewhat ironically had no Westerners. All of the other jeeps had Indian tourists in them. I learned later that most Western tourists are taken into the park from the Central entrance, so I suppose I got the insider tour. Or more likely, I got the cheap tour and the higher-paying non-Indians got the better trek. I did quickly realize that ours was the only jeep with an armed guard – apparently, the Indian government requires that an armed guard accompany all foreign tourists through the park for their safety… not that there was any real risk though.

Very quickly as we entered the park, we saw the famed Indian 1-horned rhino grazing in the plains, the highest population of which is in this national park, hence the UNESCO World Heritage status. Lil was near giddy and remained standing in the back row of the jeep most of the time. He even took an inordinate of pictures with my camera. I was really happy that I packed binoculars too, as they were extremely helpful. I think we were the envy of all of the non-binocular-having Indian tourists in the other jeeps. They kept shooting us envious glares. So I mooned them. Good times.

In different parts of the park, we came across a plethora of birds: osprey, storks, kingfishers, egrets, a large ugly vulture, and an eagle-like creature to boot. Generally speaking, we only saw animals in the plains areas. The rest of the park was covered with very tall grasses, and so we couldn’t really see off the jeep path beyond 5-10 feet. The exception was on the way back, a large rhino was grazing on the path itself. I half-thought this may have been a stunt pulled off by the park staff, or perhaps we would witness a half-naked Jim Carrey emerge from the animal’s butt (hint: see Ace Ventura 2; on second thought, skip it. All sequels are generally crappy and this one was no exception.)

We returned to the hotel for a late breakfast – given the amount of food I had eaten the previous night, I was still not very hungry but had a reasonably sized meal considering that it was nearly lunch time and we wouldn’t be eating for another 7-8 hours.

We took a quick jaunt to a nearby orchid park, which boasts… you guessed it… a lot of orchids. They were quite beautiful and varied in size, shape, and color. The guide dude explained how some grew on their own and others grew on other plants (mostly tree trunks & branches). We spent maybe an hour in the park, and even that was probably 20 minutes more than preferred.

Upon arriving back at the hotel, lunch was awaiting us – even though we had eaten breakfast barely an hour ago. It was clear that it would be rude to not touch the food that they prepared, so I figured out how to fit a few more rotis in my stomach. My India weight loss plan is really not working out at all. Or better said, it’s basically working in reverse. My momma gonna be so mad when I see her in 10 days.

The drive to Guwahati was largely uneventful, except that the roads were actual decent roadways with an actual divider between the two directions of lanes and we weren’t swerving or slowing down to avoid potholes nonstop. As we neared Guwahati though, we passed a large paper factory and within 10 minutes we went from breathing in clean air to smog. In fact, you could even see the layers of smog in the atmosphere. The locals were not helping at all either, as it seemed that every other hut had a blazing wood/garbage fire outside. India’s got a lot of work ahead of it on this front.

Driving through Guwahati was akin to returning to civilization a bit. There were traffic jams for miles (or more correctly, for kilometers) along with tons of brand name shops and scores of shoppers. We went from hanging out in the village to a budding metropolis within minutes. This disparity between the “haves” and “have-nots” is really quite striking. India’s got a lot of work ahead of it on this front, too.

After navigating through heavy traffic for an hour, we finally reached the Vivekananda Kendra that we would be staying in for the coming nights. I’m sure the area is normally quite nice, but at the moment, I was looking forward to getting out of the car, out of the smog, and into a room for the night.

Friday December 9, 2016

My host at the VK here in Guwahati joined me for breakfast and asked me about my plans for the day. Having none, I instead asked for some advice on where to go as a tourist. As I kind of gathered from perusing my India travel guide, there’s not much to see here – really just a handful of temples and other than that it’s just a city. Since I didn’t really have much luck with internet access so far, I hadn’t had much time to do any pre-planning on the week ahead, so I spent a few hours this morning on the interwebs. And since my host didn’t know the Wifi password, I basically had to sneak into the VK offices before the staff showed up and use one of their desktops at 10am.

The other task for the morning was to try and get some cash… I only had 1000 rupees on me, which is the equivalent of $15 USD though the purchasing power is likely around 2-3x that amount. When I found a bank, I pulled out 3 crisp $100 bills and went to the cashier to try and convert to rupees. She quickly informed me with the recent demonetization, the government has restricted the amount of foreign exchange per week to Rs 5000 (about $75). So I couldn’t even exchange a single $100 bill. I went back to my room and found a crisp $50 and a crisp $20 and returned triumphantly. The conversion process took roughly 45 minutes, I kid you not, and involved photocopying my passport, Indian visa, the two USD bills, and entering all of that information into the computer… including the serial numbers of the individual bills. Thank goodness I didn’t walk in with a stack of 14 crisp $5 bills.

Fortunately, pulling money from the ATM was a bit easier, but even this is limited to Rs 2500 per day per bank. So now I at least had Rs 8500 on me. Relatively-speaking, I am very fortunate. In more populated areas, there are 2hr waits at ATMs and the cash generally runs out before everyone is served. For many tourists, this is especially difficult since their only source of cash is from ATMs. So I've been fortunate to have had VKV covering my expenses so far, for having brought some crisp USD cash, and for being in the Northeast part of the country where there are no lines.

In the afternoon, Lil and I went to a temple. Neither of us were really into temples, but we were both basically bored out of our minds. This particular temple is called the Umananda Temple and is situated on an island in the middle of the mighty Brahmaputra River. We also had zero excuse not to go visit because the ferry to the island left literally across the street from where we were staying.

The island itself was reasonably nice and there was a walkway constructed around the periphery that was pleasant to stroll along and view the nondescript city from. The temple was situated at the top of the island, so we walked up to take a look and to make my momma proud. Nothing too special, except that there seemed to be an inner sanctum which had a really long line for it. Lil and I glanced at each other to see if the other person really wanted to wait, and then we walked away. Sorry, mom.

We still had 30 minutes to kill before the return ferry would take us back. So we sipped on some fresh coconut water and then tried to chat as much as possible through my broken Hindi and his broken English from then through the rest of the evening. I learned that he was only 22 years old, came from quite a broken family in Nepal, and lives a pretty simple life. He’s thrilled to have this job as a driver with VKV as it gives him a roof over his head (he has a room at the VKV in Tinsukia) and he genuinely enjoys driving. As he said, this is enough for him right now and he is happy with that.

Lil asked me a lot of questions about living in the US, and one of the best ways I had to show what life was like was to start flipping through the pictures on my camera. I showed him pictures of Julia’s and my recent trip to Washington DC, pictures of a trip a very diverse set of friends took to Nashville a few years back (at least 7 ethnicities), pictures from a boat during my friend’s bachelor party a few months back… Through this experience, I could see him soaking up a bit and trying to comprehend just how different our lives were… or perhaps it was just me trying to comprehend and make sense of this difference. I suppose it made me reflect quite a bit on just how fortunate I am to have been born to a well off family to loving parents in a wealthy country, and that it truly is pure luck that my consciousness (or soul) was not borne into much more dire circumstances.

As nice and accommodating as everyone from VKV has been, I honestly have been getting a little bit tired of Indian hospitality… and I’ve found it nearly impossible to make an adjustment without offending or getting an over-correction because they are assuming you are being polite. The unspoken politeness in both directions can be deafening. Perhaps this is true of hospitality in general between people who don’t really know one another. I guess the communication gap just makes it more awkward here as well. But I think the somewhat vague circumstances around this entire visit are awkward to begin with, so we’re at awkward squared right now. The root of this, of course, is awkwardness. I just made a bad math joke.

My hosts offered to house me for a few more days and even have me join them for a large event that they were preparing for in a few days. But really the last thing I wanted to do is have to mingle with a bunch of Indians that I didn’t know, couldn’t adequately communicate with, couldn’t relate to, and couldn’t really explain what I was doing there. So, I opted instead to get the heck out of Dodge and venture out on my own. I worked up the courage to inform my host that I wanted to head down to the state of Meghalaya tomorrow morning and asked for his help only in getting me on the proper transportation. Fortunately for me, I think he also felt the awkwardness of the situation and was more than happy to oblige.

Success.

P.S. I'm going to hold off on Tidbits since this post is already crazy long. That means even more next time, I think...