Another Day, Another Small Adventure

The photos to the left give you a glimpse of our housing: the kitchen and the front of the building (we're the unit to the right of the stairs). Maybe this gives you an idea of why we were a bit shocked at first, although we're feeling increasingly comfortable (and these don't show either the dining room or the living room, which are the "showpieces" of the house!

And this is another shot of the campus, underscoring again how very pretty it is. There are, however, some things you don't see on a U.S. campus, like monkeys jumping from branch to branch, green parrots flying through the trees, and groundskeepers sitting on the lawns literally picking out the individual weeds by hand. This reminds you that you are in another country.

Slowly we're exploring our surroundings more -- yesterday we took our first unaccompanied trip into town. We rode our bikes (did I mention that we both got bikes? Mine is purple and says "Miss India"; Bob's, black, says "Nitrogen." They told him at the store that he couldn't buy a black one for me -- only purple and pink were for girls) out the campus gate and down the relatively quiet road that goes into the center of town (not far -- maybe less than a kilometer?), but when we hit the main street we had to park our bikes and walk. That's because the campus and the town are -- to use an eastern phrase -- like yin and yang: one peaceful, leafy, quiet; the other noisy, dusty, chaotic (at least to our eyes), crammed to the gills with stalls selling things while in the street cars, pedicabs, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians all dash madly past and around one another, merrily honking horns. We didn't walk far this trip, just to a grocery store that we had been to with Vivek before where we bought a few items -- this store, which is smaller than the average 7-11, is the biggest and "fanciest" we have seen so far. As I mentioned, most of the selling is happening from stalls rather than stores, except for a few electronics stores (also small), which are stocked with the absolute latest in digital equipment and the occasional bank or commercial-type building. And we haven't even made it to the actual marketplace yet -- that's a possible trip for tomorrow.

After we'd walked a bit "downtown," we were sitting on a stoop by the side of the road for a moment and a guy came up and started talking to us who turned out to be the perfect former NRI -- which is what they call "non-resident Indians" here. Turns out that many, many Gujuratis -- most of whom seem to come from one giant very extended family that has the name Patel -- have emigrated abroad, to Britain, Canada, the States, etc. and at least in the U.S., they have absolutely monopolized the motel business -- about half of all U.S. chain motels are now owned by Patels. With a little prodding from us, this guy seemed happy to tell us his life story, which began with his going to New Jersey in his early twenties with $10 in his pocket to live with a sister (he is one of nine children). He had already gotten a B.A. and M.A. in chemistry here in India, and after a little while he got a job with the NYC Police Dept. forensics unit, which seemed pretty good to me. But apparently most Patels are incurably entrepreneurial, so he wanted to go into business, and the only business he had saved up enough to afford at that point was a dry cleaners, so he went to dry cleaning school (who even knew there was such a thing?) and bought a shop. With his wife working there while he continued at the NYPD, they were able to save up enough to buy their first motel, in Pennsylvania, and he gradually traded up through various intermediate motels in West Virginia, among other places, until now they own a 7 1/2 million dollar motel in San Antonio, TX. Not only that, but he's now come back to Ahmedabad to live (although occasionally flying over to the U.S. to attend to motel business) in a spiritual community run by someone called Da Da Bhagwan (or, at least, that's the website: dadabhagwan.org). Check out the website -- it's a very elaborate venture. In fact, I wouldn't be the least surprised if there's a group of devotees of this guy in Northampton and Amherst.

He talked to us at some length about his spiritual beliefs -- certainly, though subtlely, in a proselytizing mode -- which is the second time in the less than two weeks we've been in India that we've been plunged deeply into spiritual discussion by a total stranger -- the first being in our guest house in Delhi, when the Indian man in the next room introduced himself over breakfast as a student of metaphysics and proceeded to elaborate an abstruse philosophy of life which I've, perhaps fortunately, mostly forgotten. I'm pretty sure proper breathing and reincarnation were both a part of it, but beyond that I can't say.

On a more secular note, we spent some time this afternoon meeting one of the new faculty members that Vivek has hired since he came here, a very friendly and interesting guy from Kerala who teaches "Cooperative Movements," among other courses. He's involved in a research project with people from around the world, coordinated by someone from the U. of Minnesota, that's looking at comparative government responses to global warming, so we had lots to talk about. His wife is also about to have their first child (he's young -- maybe thirtyish?), in late February, and he told me she had just left for her parents' home in Kerala, where she will be for and after the birth for about three months in total. This, I gather, is completely typical -- clearly the extended family is alive and well here in a way that is long gone for most people in the U.S. Ariel, Rebecca, and Tova -- if you are reading this -- beware! If and when your time comes to have children, perhaps your moms will scoop you up for months at a time as well!