Home to Anand

We left Delhi for our flight to Anand (actually, to Vadodara, the nearest city to Anand with a commercial airport) on Wednesday afternoon at about 2 p.m., and from there everything was uneventful – on the plane by 5 p.m., landing in Vadodara at 7:40 p.m. We were met by a driver from IRMA, who – silently, as we’ve discovered is the norm (chattiness, at least with strangers, doesn’t seem to be the standard practice) – drove us the ninety minutes or so to Anand. Our brief glimpse of the town at night suggested that it was a relatively poor, rural town – certainly nothing like Delhi – but we passed through quickly and went into the gates of the Institute for Rural Management (IRMA) campus, which is a spacious, quiet, leafy place surrounded by walls. Two men who I initially thought, to my surprise, were either military or police – but I learned later were actually just campus security guards – met us at our apartment and showed us around. Their English was minimal, so I caught only some of the instructions they gave (e.g., “hot,” “cold,” pointing out the taps in the sink) and not others (well, those I can’t describe, of course). Then they left, and we were – alone.

Left in our new “home” that was minimally furnished, undecorated, and – although it is standard faculty housing – considerably less luxurious than the house we’d left behind in Northampton, Bob and I both had a moment of dismay – a sudden “what-are-we-doing-here?” sinking of the heart. The spareness of the apartment, augmented by the impersonality of our greeting by barely-English speaking security guards was distressing – where was our welcome? What had we come to? Fortunately, just as we were trying to hide our distress and be cheerful for one another, the phone rang, and it was Vivek (our former Hampshire colleague who now directs IRMA) asking how we were and saying he would drop by momentarily to take us to the IRMA staff Christmas eve festivities. This helped enormously, and he came by and walked with us to the party taking place on the lawn around the corner from our apartment block, which was a very cheering event. On stage, there was a Santa in an odd (to western eyes) Santa mask with a group of kids singing; a camel cart filled to the brim with laughing children was jogging around the perimeter of the party space (who knew that camels could trot along so swiftly?); and a long line of primarily IRMA staff, with some students and faculty, waited in line for cake, talking with one another. Twinkling colored lights strung everywhere gave it a festive air. Although there is a Christian minority at IRMA (and in Anand generally) – about 10%, I think Vivek said – apparently Christmas is celebrated generally in India in any event as a secular holiday – the philosophy seems to be “the more festivals the merrier.”

I talked briefly with a faculty member – mostly pleasantries – and at greater length with the first year class representative, whom I liked a lot. He had come to IRMA after working for two years at HSBC Bank because he found that work unsatisfying and wanted something more meaningful to do. He seemed excited about the opportunities IRMA offered (lots of fieldwork placements in NGOs and villages as well as academics – it’s kind of the Northeastern Law School of Indian management programs), and also enthusiastic about having Bob and me meet and talk with students – made me feel wanted. I began to feel excitement -- rather than my initial distress – about what lay ahead.

And now, three days later (I can hardly believe we’ve been here almost three days – so much still feels so new!), I am definitely beginning to feel more at home bit by slow bit. The last few days have been almost entirely taken up with errands and routine tasks connected to settling in – broken by periods of deferred jet lag that have caused us to drop dead asleep at 3 in the afternoon, what was meant to be a brief nap turning into sleeping through supper. Then we force ourselves to get out of bed at 9 or so, eat a bit and wander around our apartment bleary-eyed for an hour or two, watch some TV (there’s a huge array of channels, both Gujurati and Hindi speaking and English-speaking – satellite TV, I guess), and fall back into bed until morning. Tonight we’re actually going to try to stay up until supper (which is eaten late, at about 8 p.m.), and begin living a more normal daily timetable.

Thursday a.m. we went “downtown” with Vivek to stock up on basic house supplies (tea, juice, napkins, etc. and even a cute red toaster), then had a long, late lunch at his house with him and his wife Charu and their two daughters and his parents who were visiting from out of town. After that, as reported above, we went home to “rest” and didn’t wake until nighttime. Yesterday I got set up at the school – got my office (in the faculty office building, which is in easy walking distance of our apartment), got materials duplicated for my first week of classes – which start Monday! can you believe?? – talked with the professor who is head of the academic program about various IRMA information (grading, class schedule, exams – it was a fairly formal discussion). There was a faculty meeting in the late afternoon, and although the turn-out was low (and entirely male!) because many faculty are still away on holiday break, Bob and I came and introduced ourselves to the faculty who were there. There’s also some academic politics going on at the school with the Board of Governors due to meet next week, and some fairly significant decisions about various issues pending, so Vivek’s been immersed in that, and the faculty meeting after we left was apparently fairly heated. Of course, we are pretty oblivious to all that. Right after our introductions we were whisked away downtown by a staff member to get our cell phones, which we did, successfully, in a tiny cell phone store packed with salesmen and customers and the very latest in equipment. The entire digital infrastructure is very advanced here (cell phones, Internet, etc. all available and used by everyone everywhere), which is quite surprising to our eyes in a place that in other ways seems more “primitive” – i.e., bumpy, narrow roads, open stalls for many shops, as many bicycles, motorbikes, and pedestrians as there are cars. It’s like they just jumped over the entire analog era.

And, for everyone’s information, our cell phone numbers are 971-208-9647 (me) and 971-208-9648 (Bob) – I assume from the U.S. you would have to dial 011-91 in front of that. We do also have a landline in our apartment, the number of which is – from the U.S. – 011-91-269-222-1777. But since there’s no message machine on that line, you’re probably better off Skyping or calling our cell phones rather than using that number unless there’s an emergency.

Today, Saturday, has been a pleasantly quiet day: late breakfast at our apartment (we’ve started getting the newspaper delivered in the morning, so Bob is feeling much closer to his “normal” routine, which always starts by reading the newspaper, though he hasn’t discovered any local coffee shops yet); email at my office; some time just hanging out with Vivek at his office; and a very enjoyable lunch with an IRMA alumnus from the first graduating class who runs what’s called the “South Indian Federation of Fisherman Societies,” based in Kerala, which organizes fishermen into co-ops. His name is Vivek Vivekanandan, and he’s now on the IRMA Board of Governors, which is why he’s here (for the meeting coming up this week). We found him very easy and enjoyable to talk to – our few conversations with other folks so far have seemed more stiff and formal, but he was lively and interesting – we discussed, among other things, what’s happening to fishermen and other local people in a region of Gujurat not far from here called Kutch as oil companies and other industries are being given permission by the central government to buy up big chunks of property along the coast, and local people are losing their access to the sea. A (sadly) familiar story in many ways – the defeat of the small by the Big – we swapped some tales of resistance from India and the U.S.