This and that in Anand

It’s been quite a while since I’ve added to this blog; mostly because I was actually very busy working last week. I’m somewhat embarrassed to confess that this was because I was finishing some Hampshire work that I brought from home with me (and should have finished even before I left the U.S.) – but no need to dwell on my procrastination problems here. In any event, this, on top of my regular classes, kept me mostly in my office in front of a computer all week. Not very exciting blog material!

On the other hand, since we haven’t been anywhere beyond Anand since we got back from Baroda two weekends ago, this gives me a chance to write about some of our more day-to-day experiences here. So, in no particular order, I’ll mention:

We Discover Walmart in Anand

We thought we already knew downtown Anand – one long main street, Amul Dairy Road (Anand is the home of the famous Amul Dairy, India’s largest cooperative enterprise and major dairy supplier), a bunch of side streets and residential streets, and a market area. But no – two weeks ago we discovered that there’s an entirely different part of town with a whole other commercial area, residential areas, and even a large university called Sardar Patel University. And, on a more personal note, it’s in that area that the one “real” coffee shop is, which certainly motivated Bob to explore it. So one day we got in an auto-rickshaw and told the driver to take us to town hall, because we’d been told that that was the landmark that drivers would recognize (not the coffee shop or even the university). Off we went, through totally unfamiliar territory, past an area with houses that had hundreds of pastel-colored ceramic sinks and other bathroom fixtures spread out in front of them (the plumbing section of town?), into a slightly classier part of town where there were actually more stores than stalls. We had no real idea of where we were, but the auto- rickshaw stopped, so we got out. And directly across the street from us was a store called Big Bazaar (see photo), the closest thing we had seen to anything like a Walmart (or Target, or Caldor) since arriving in India. Being apparently more retail-starved than we realized, we were held in thrall by this place, which turned out to have three floors: the first selling sheets and towels, small appliances, toiletries, pots and dishes, and food, the second, clothes, and the third, which we didn’t even get to fully investigate for lack of time, luggage and sporting goods. We walked around slowly as if intoxicated, discussing with one another the relative merits of different varieties of plastic storage dishes and chutneys, and carefully studying the prices of things and trying to translate them back into dollars (it isn’t so hard – fifty rupees to a dollar – but we get very confused). We made some exciting purchases on the first floor (two coffee cups, two different kinds of plastic storage dishes, food that included – oh, the thrill of it! – a wide range of 100% natural juices from South Africa – I told you we were retail-starved!), but the big excitement was on the second floor, where I got to shop for new clothes. A photo of me in my new shalwar is included above.

Then, after getting directions, we walked a ways down the road and finally found the Cafe Coffee Day coffee shop. As you can see by his picture, Bob was in heaven! Now he was truly at home in Anand.

Inauguration East – Very East!

True, it wasn’t quite the same as being on the mall in Washington (which our daughter Tova and niece Rebecca were), but the four Americans, two Indians, one Syrian and one Argentinian who gathered in our living room at 10:00 p.m. last Tuesday night to watch Barack Hussein Obama take the oath of office could not have been more thrilled if we had been standing right there. How wonderful to finally be rid of that Other Guy ( I don’t even want to mention his name anymore). I won’t include the photos here, but those who want to see images of our inauguration night festivities (and other events) can check it out at www.picasaweb.google.com/stephaniealevin.

On Jan. 20, the Big Day, I had a class at noon, so that morning I had the sudden inspiration to show my class the inauguration by projecting it from my laptop. Then it hit me – my noon class was actually 1:30 a.m. in DC; so much for that idea. But by then I’d gotten so caught up in the American spirit, and was also so sorry that I’d forgotten to say anything the previous day in class about Martin Luther King Day, that I decided a video of King was in order. A quick review of YouTube turned up a fine video of the “I have a dream” speech, and the first twenty minutes of my Tuesday class was all taken care of. The class definitely liked seeing it (they all knew who M. L. King was, but most weren’t familiar with the speech), and I, of course, was moved almost to tears. And then, that very night (my time) Obama! Whatever he may do in the future, bad or good, it was quite a happy conjunction.

My Class

All of which brings me to a few comments about my class – again, not very exotic as blogging goes, but it is, after all, the main reason I’m here. One thing I can say about my 31 students right away is that they laugh at my jokes, which certainly endears them to me. When I showed them the King video, I told them my favorite M. L. King story, which is that when Tova was in first grade, she came home one day and told me that they were learning the “I have a dream” speech, a few sentences per kid, to perform in the auditorium. Hoping to impress her (what mother doesn’t like to impress her child?), I said to her, “You know, I actually met Martin Luther King” (which is true, when I was 18 and doing civil rights work in Mississippi). She looked amazed, and I thought, wow, that’s great, I’ve really made an impression. “Mommy,” she said, her voice awed, “I didn’t know you were that old.”

They laughed at that, but the one that really cracked them up was when I came into class and said, first thing, in a very serious voice: “You know, after a great deal of thinking, I’ve finally put my finger on the essence of the difference between the U.S. and India.” They all leaned forward eagerly to hear what I’d concluded. Taking a long scarf that I had as part of my outfit that day, I draped it over my shoulders with the ends coming down on either side of my chest. “In America,” I said, “the women all wear their scarves this way.” Then, with a flourish, I reversed the scarf so that it went around my neck from the front, the ends coming down on either side of my back. “And in India,” I concluded triumphantly, “the women all wear their scarves this way!” They roared. I really should have been a stand-up comedian instead of a professor!