Weekend in Rishikesh
We spent a lovely weekend out of Delhi in Rishikesh, a city about 5 hours away from Delhi and known for various adventure sports. There is white water rafting on the Ganga River, and bungee jumping, and trekking. It is also a major spiritual center for India, with lots of yoga and holy men etc. (Maybe because it’s on the Ganga river?) For some reason, it also attracts lots and lots of Israelis. Menus actually list “Israeli salad” as an option! While there, we opted to do some mountain hiking. We were told by the guide that it wouldn’t be too onerous, since we drive to the top of the mountain and then hike down. I figured gravity is in our favor, what can be bad? Plus, I walk a mile or two every day; I should be relatively fit. Wrong. The tourist office really needs to have signs that say things like: “Warning – not suitable for children under 12 or pregnant women,” like they say on amusement park rides…I know how to read the signals. It was a lovely trek in the beginning, but we had a 16 km hike down the mountain…and somewhere around kilometer 10, I really wanted to sit on the sidelines. But what can you do? You’re in the middle of a mountain…We ultimately made it down, but I was nearly in tears and I couldn’t walk down steps for the next 5 days…Amnon and the boys then went white water rafting on the Ganges, and had a great time. I stayed behind and watched movies on TV.
Thailand
Adam’s spring break was in March, and we took a family vacation to Thailand. I have included a link to some of our pictures. Southern Thailand had flooding and storms, and so we stayed in Bangkok. The landlady for our apartment in Delhi also has an apartment in Bangkok (a magnificent apartment) with a maid, and she kindly offered the boys the chance to stay there. Amnon and I stayed at a nearby hotel. A break from Delhi was welcome. Taxis and traffic were more disciplined, and there were fewer stray animals walking the streets. We went to the Floating Market (we were on a boat, and salespeople are along the sides….”hooking you in” when you show interest in their wares.) We saw the palace, and temples with golden and emerald Buddhas….(I didn’t know that Buddhism had such an ostentatious side.)
It was also an opportunity to reflect on the evolution of family vacations. When your kids are really little, they travel where you want to or need to travel. Amnon and I went to Rome when Jesse was an infant (we took him with us since he was a nursing baby), and we saw all the sights with Jesse carried in a snuggly. When the kids are older, you plan vacations that will appeal to them, with water parks and amusement parks included. Now the boys are teenagers and beyond, and requirements change once again. We are not the source of their entertainment. The boys went to clubs and then slept late; Amnon and I went to landmarks and “native” shopping markets. We converged for meals.
It was also an opportunity to reflect on the evolution of family vacations. When your kids are really little, they travel where you want to or need to travel. Amnon and I went to Rome when Jesse was an infant (we took him with us since he was a nursing baby), and we saw all the sights with Jesse carried in a snuggly. When the kids are older, you plan vacations that will appeal to them, with water parks and amusement parks included. Now the boys are teenagers and beyond, and requirements change once again. We are not the source of their entertainment. The boys went to clubs and then slept late; Amnon and I went to landmarks and “native” shopping markets. We converged for meals.
Preparing mentally for the return to the US
When we were coming to India, I knew there would be lots of unexpected surprises. We would forget things in the US that we discovered we needed. We would overpay for something in India that it turned out we didn’t need. There would be any number of frustrations, big and small. I promised myself to be “shanti” (peaceful and easygoing) about anything that went awry, and to take it with humor. For the most part, I have succeeded. Even when something was upsetting or scary or otherwise frustrating, I was able to remind myself that it was all part of the incredible experience, and even if there was something “bad” we were only here temporarily, and we can tolerate a lot if we know it’s temporary. Now we have the return trip upcoming, and I can’t play the same psychological game, and say this is all a temporary adventure, since now it is “real life.” But somehow, I need to preserve the same “shanti” attitude, since challenges surely await…
Getting closer to the end of our journey
The planning phases have begun for the end of this incredible international assignment. Jordan has left India and gone to Israel. Adam still has school till the end of May; as soon as he finishes (the very next day), he, Jesse, and Tom will leave India and go to Europe, and Jordan will meet them there. They will travel through Europe for a few weeks and then return to New York. (First Jesse and Adam; then Tom and Jordan). I will leave India on July 15th. Amnon will stay here after we leave, since his contract with the Indian construction infrastructure company continues till November 2011. And after that, we shall see what happens.
The Lonely Planet – Indian commentary
India seems to be “grittier” than other countries in the developing world; I am not sure why. We have spoken to friends and family that have traveled extensively in Southeast Asia, and have been to other developing countries that are still poor. And yet India seems to be tougher. There is a lot of scamming here. I have shared our own little scamming stories, and how difficult it is to get a taxi or rickshaw to use a meter when you are white. I read the Lonely Planet guide, about ritualized scams for foreigners in India. I don’t know if this is as pervasive in other countries? There are apparently very common scams for foreigners, when they are looking for a hotel, or a travel office. A tout comes over and tells the foreigner that the place they are looking for has moved, has been closed, burned down. But good news – he knows about another hotel he can take them to. Or, he will take them to the newly built travel office that the foreigners didn’t know existed. The unwitting and grateful foreigner takes him at his word, and then gets overcharged at the new site, and the helpful tout gets a cut. There is some other known scam whereby foreigners are asked to work with a local to ship gems overseas, with the promise of a significant cut of the profits. The Lonely Planet blog had someone post query…”When I travel through India, are my internal organs safe?” I thought that this was a humorous exaggeration. Then I saw the Indian movie Ghajini where poor girls from a village were kidnapped and drugged, and a kidney was removed. I don’t know if art-imitates-life, but the Lonely Planet quip didn’t seem humorous after that…
Feeding and caring for dogs
There is a stray dog that hangs around the guard booth outside our apartment. The guards often take on “ownership” roles with the strays that stay near them; giving them leftover food scraps, etc. The standard fare for dogs in Delhi is not packaged dog food. Even dogs with owners are generally fed rice, milk, and chapati/roti (flat bread). The packaged dog foods here are the same imported brands that we get in the west, like Pedigree. A large package costs $20 or so. (And Kimbo’s fancy-pants German Shepherd puppy food is even more.) Jesse has done volunteer work with a vet in Delhi, and he asked whether it is nutritionally sound to feed dogs leftovers from human food. The answer was no; the packaged dog foods do a much better job of meeting the animal’s nutritional requirements. That’s fine, but someone needs to come up with a local Indian brand that is within reasonable cost for locals. $20 would be a week’s salary for the guards…
I have been supplying packaged dog food for the stray near our apartment, and for the strays near the IBM Research office. One of the guards on our street came to me a few days after the food had run out. He said the dog was no longer eating the chapatis that he gave her; could I get her more Pedigree? I did, but I am also wondering about whether good deeds can have bad unintended consequences….When we leave India, will the dog resume eating the standard street fare? I have to assume that survival instincts will kick in, once the packaged foods are unavailable… I have opted to continue feeding the dogs with dog-appropriate food while I am here; trusting that their survival skills will prevail once we leave.
This same dog recently gave birth to three puppies. One of them was hit by a passing motorcycle. (I am surprised that any dogs survive the traffic here.) Another was clearly ill; the guard didn’t think this one would survive, either. Jesse and Adam did a “rescue operation” - - taking the puppies by taxi to the vet. The vet treated them both, and asked for us to care for them for a few days while she arranged for them to get placed in a private home. She said that the ill puppy, now treated, would do fine. They were as cute as can be…here are some pictures from the days they spent with us.
I have been supplying packaged dog food for the stray near our apartment, and for the strays near the IBM Research office. One of the guards on our street came to me a few days after the food had run out. He said the dog was no longer eating the chapatis that he gave her; could I get her more Pedigree? I did, but I am also wondering about whether good deeds can have bad unintended consequences….When we leave India, will the dog resume eating the standard street fare? I have to assume that survival instincts will kick in, once the packaged foods are unavailable… I have opted to continue feeding the dogs with dog-appropriate food while I am here; trusting that their survival skills will prevail once we leave.
This same dog recently gave birth to three puppies. One of them was hit by a passing motorcycle. (I am surprised that any dogs survive the traffic here.) Another was clearly ill; the guard didn’t think this one would survive, either. Jesse and Adam did a “rescue operation” - - taking the puppies by taxi to the vet. The vet treated them both, and asked for us to care for them for a few days while she arranged for them to get placed in a private home. She said that the ill puppy, now treated, would do fine. They were as cute as can be…here are some pictures from the days they spent with us.
The States of India
India has 28 states. One of my US colleagues prepared me not to think about these as similar to US-states; it is more like European Union….28 states with their own languages, cultures, and customs, all COMPLETELY distinct. Adam has joked that they shouldn’t be called “states” at all, they are all SO DIFFERENT…they should be separate continents, separate galaxies…But then he humorously points out the “similarities” (at least, from our goora (= white person’s) perspective…) We are perceived as walking wallets in all of the states we have visited; the taxis refuse to go by the meter in any of them, often claiming the meters don’t work; there are stray animals and debris on the streets, impossible traffic, power outages and undrinkable water…So from Adam’s perspective, and our outsider view, the similarities outweigh the differences…
Walking your dog and racial profiling
We have ongoing issues about where to walk your dog, how to clean up after him, where to throw it afterwards. Tomy has been told by one of the “park attendants” that shows up in our park periodically that Kimbo cannot walk there, and he threatened the dog with a stick. He has been told by a guard outside one of the apartments that he can’t take Kimbo on the public street. All of this peculiar, in a place where the stray animals are (obviously) going anywhere they want. The boys mused as to whether there might be a law that says your dog must be walked only in certain areas. I said it is not beyond the realm of possibility that such a law could exist in India. The boys think the guard was singling us out as white - - he wasn’t giving the same instructions to local Indians that also walk their dogs there. I spoke to some Indians; they indicated that they patently ignore any such comments from guards and parking attendants. So maybe we are being singled out because we are the only ones that would actually listen.
India - -The place to go to address the BIG issues
On so many topics….if you want to address the really big issues, India is the place. For Amnon, in construction, this is where the “big stuff” is still being built, the infrastructure that will enable India to emerge from its “emerging country” status. In education, or poverty, you are dealing with some of the most unfortunate people on earth; this is not poverty at the margins. In women’s issues, the discrimination and horrors faced by girls and women are much more glaring than the west. In the west, we talk about whether a “glass ceiling” remains in the workforce; whether men are sharing more of the “second shift” of labor when husband and wife return from work. In India, there are issues like dowry burnings (when the new wife didn’t bring sufficient dowry), and honor killings. Given the preference for male children, and the willingness to take drastic measures to ensure you have a male child, some areas in India now have ratios of 60 boys to 40 girls. Big, big problems to address.
Indian Optimism
Data shows that Indians are among the most optimistic people in the world; Europeans are much less so. But when you look at people on the streets, you feel this undercurrent of desperation, hopelessness, boredom. So many people on the streets have these low-paying and largely boring jobs, like sitting in or outside a hot guard booth all day on the outside of a 3-family home, reading the newspaper and chatting with other guards, coping with the heat.
Who is John Galt?
There is a certain type of response that you often hear when the topic comes up about changing something in India. The listener will often smile, and say something like “Well, this is India” or “It’s too hard to change XYZ” or “It’s too hard to change XYZ quickly.” I wonder whether people are too tolerant about things that need changing. I am reminded of the defeated expression, “Who is John Galt?” (as in – “you can’t fight City Hall”) from Ayn Rand’s “Atlas Shrugged.” Things here ARE changing, and they are changing quickly….but with more of a collective sense of “we will not accept this anymore,” perhaps it can be accelerated further. Or maybe they would just end up banging their heads against the wall…and so stoicism is a good thing.
The role of little girls – history, culture, and unintended consequences
The issues around girls and young women in India are daunting, and include some horrific acts like foeticide, abandonment/murdering infant girls, and dowry killings.
I think there are a lot of cultural norms that culminate in these problems. As I have mentioned earlier, I try to separate in my head which aspects that I observe are just the cultural norms of a different place (e.g., eating different types of foods - - you might *like* something more or less, but that is an issue of *taste*; you can’t make an objective judgment that this type of food is “bad,” unless it is objectively less healthy). Then there are things like the preference for boys, and the cultural phenomena that lead to that. And there, I do take a stand that these “cultural phenomena” are just not good.
Some background. India does not have a well-developed social security system, and there is apparently more dependence on the support of your kids as you age. The cultural norm in most Indian states is that the son (with his wife and children) live with their parents. This is certainly the norm among my colleagues, unless they are working in Delhi and their parents are in some distant state.
The girl’s family, on the other hand, is often expected to provide a dowry when they offer their daughter for marriage. And ongoing - - this part amazes me - - the girl’s family is never supposed to expect *anything* from their daughter and son-in-law. There is a saying that they should not even drink a glass of water in their married daughter’s home. (This is certainly not “followed” by all families - -but this is also not just the custom of some fringe communities…) I *think* there is a natural closeness and co-dependence between girls and their parents, so the *system* here seems to have violated a natural order, in favor of sexism.
The message that I glean here: We have given you our daughter, this burden for you to support. We have given you a dowry to soften the blow. We will not increase your burdens by also visiting your home, or expecting any care or nurturing from our now-married daughter.
Sane people in any culture agree that foeticide or infant abandonment is horrific, and it is illegal here. In fact, it is illegal for hospitals to reveal the gender of your baby if you do prenatal testing, to reduce the likelihood of female foeticide.
But if you ratchet back to root causes….the customs here have made girl-children less desirable. Let’s think particularly about poor families, scraping along. Parents of girl children need to save for dowries, and then hand their daughters off for good when they get married. There is really no dividend, then, in having daughters. I imagine that parents in this scenario also won’t “stretch” to educate their daughters…why bother? And this then becomes self-fulfilling - - when they do marry off their daughter to another family, she may in fact not have any education or good earning-skills…so she really may be more of a “burden for them to support” without skills to contribute to feeding and clothing her family.
I think there are a lot of cultural norms that culminate in these problems. As I have mentioned earlier, I try to separate in my head which aspects that I observe are just the cultural norms of a different place (e.g., eating different types of foods - - you might *like* something more or less, but that is an issue of *taste*; you can’t make an objective judgment that this type of food is “bad,” unless it is objectively less healthy). Then there are things like the preference for boys, and the cultural phenomena that lead to that. And there, I do take a stand that these “cultural phenomena” are just not good.
Some background. India does not have a well-developed social security system, and there is apparently more dependence on the support of your kids as you age. The cultural norm in most Indian states is that the son (with his wife and children) live with their parents. This is certainly the norm among my colleagues, unless they are working in Delhi and their parents are in some distant state.
The girl’s family, on the other hand, is often expected to provide a dowry when they offer their daughter for marriage. And ongoing - - this part amazes me - - the girl’s family is never supposed to expect *anything* from their daughter and son-in-law. There is a saying that they should not even drink a glass of water in their married daughter’s home. (This is certainly not “followed” by all families - -but this is also not just the custom of some fringe communities…) I *think* there is a natural closeness and co-dependence between girls and their parents, so the *system* here seems to have violated a natural order, in favor of sexism.
The message that I glean here: We have given you our daughter, this burden for you to support. We have given you a dowry to soften the blow. We will not increase your burdens by also visiting your home, or expecting any care or nurturing from our now-married daughter.
Sane people in any culture agree that foeticide or infant abandonment is horrific, and it is illegal here. In fact, it is illegal for hospitals to reveal the gender of your baby if you do prenatal testing, to reduce the likelihood of female foeticide.
But if you ratchet back to root causes….the customs here have made girl-children less desirable. Let’s think particularly about poor families, scraping along. Parents of girl children need to save for dowries, and then hand their daughters off for good when they get married. There is really no dividend, then, in having daughters. I imagine that parents in this scenario also won’t “stretch” to educate their daughters…why bother? And this then becomes self-fulfilling - - when they do marry off their daughter to another family, she may in fact not have any education or good earning-skills…so she really may be more of a “burden for them to support” without skills to contribute to feeding and clothing her family.
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