We Go to the Big City

We're just about to end a two-day trip to Ahmedabad, one of the two big cities nearest to Anand (the other is Vadodara, which is the city we flew into). We came up on Thursday morning, leaving at about 10 a.m., and arriving shortly before noon, and the same car and driver from IRMA that brought us here should be arriving in about 15 minutes -- at 7 p.m., today being Friday -- to take us "home." A lot has been packed into these two days; I'll try to hit the high points.

The drive up was easy and very pleasant -- a road that we're told is one of the best highways in all of India (actually two lanes in each direction, which is highly unusual, and also with limited exits and entrances, ditto), and very little traffic. Once we got beyond the sprawl at the edges of Anand (which isn't that bad, since Anand is quite a small city), the countryside was lovely -- flat, but almost all cultivated with extremely neatly tended fields of crops, tidy looking houses and outbuildings (at least they looked tidy from the highway), and big haystacks; goats and cows wandering around; trees and flowers; and -- quite notably -- no roads -- it was obvious that these were farms and villages that people only walked between. One drove quite a way between seeing any roads at all, which only added to the serene and scenic quality. After the almost overly-tended campus of IRMA, and the chaotic noisy traffic and blare of "downtown" Anand, it was quite a pleasure to see the fields unrolling outside the car windows as people went about their rural business (of course, seeing it through car windows is probably far more pleasurable than actually having to do the work, but that's another issue. . . .). But then -- bang! -- we entered the outskirts of Ahmedabad, and oh my God! it made Anand seem like a tranquil paradise. The road, once we got off the highway, was terrible (dirt, bumps, occasional asphalt), the traffic was incredible, and on both sides of the narrow road it seemed like the place was in the midst of some gigantic upheaval of destruction and re-construction: huge ditches being dug on one side of the road with mounds of earth thrown up nearby, houses literally sliced in half in the process of being torn down, with interior spaces and furniture thrown open to the passing eye, animals wandering around, stalls stuck into nooks and crannies selling all kinds of stuff, and here and there, in the midst of this chaos, an occasional new, modern building, perhaps a foretaste of what was to come, perhaps an effort at development abandoned to the sprawl. As we actually got closer to the city center, things started to smooth out a bit -- the streets were consistently paved and regular, the buildings lined up on either side in a more predictable fashion, the animals gradually thinned out and disappeared -- but the noise, the traffic, the dust, the general overabundance of people and places everywhere you turned your eyes, persisted. We snaked our way through traffic on some major busy streets and finally turned down a narrow alley at the end of which was the hotel -- Hotel Volga -- recommended by Lonely Planet at which we had made our reservation. We had deliberately chosen a mid-price rather than a western-style "regular" hotel, and although it wouldn't be the choice of those who like to stay at the Ritz-Carleton, or maybe even the Holiday Inn, it was actually totally clean, the lobby and room were both spacious and perfectly decently decorated, and the bathroom -- always an important feature -- had a terrific shower and completely functional, if not particularly modern, toilet and sink. For $24, it was a good deal in our estimation. For those who might be a little less flexible in their standards than we are, a photo is attached so you can judge for yourself.

After checking in, we decided to head across the river (the city is divided in half by the Sabarmati River, with the "old" city on the east side and the newer metropolis on the west -- our hotel was quite near one of the bridges on the eastern side) to a bookstore-coffee shop touted by Lonely Planet. Bob was almost salivating at his first chance to be in a decent coffee shop since we had arrived in India. Since the distance didn't seem very far (we had a map), we walked across the bridge and then, because we were hungry by that time, stopped at a place we picked at random for lunch, which turned out to have excellent Indian food. After getting lost and retracing our steps several times, we finally made our way to the bookstore/cafe, which was underneath a pretty sketchy-looking small shopping mall, but did, indeed, have a western-style coffee shop (again, we're not talking upscale here -- marble countertops and the like -- but a pleasant place with tables and chairs, a range of hot and iced coffees, tea, and snacks -- even cappucccino, which was what Bob went for. He said it was the worst cappuccino he'd ever had, and he would have been better off just ordering regular coffee, but hey -- it was at least a shadow of what he wanted). I had a coffee and ice cream shake, which was delicious. The bookstore itself was gigantic and the most "western" place I've been in so far -- 80% of the books were in English, so it obviously serves the English-speaking population, such as it may be, in Ahmedabad, and there was everything: fiction, non-fiction, children's books, DVDS, stationery, history, self-help, etc. etc. -- a regular Borders (o.k., maybe not quite as big or fancy as Borders, but pretty close). This made it fairly uninteresting to me, however, so although I looked around while Bob read his newspaper over his cappuccino, there wasn't much to capture me. I did, however, get a children's book for learning to write the Hindi alphabet and simple words, since I think the Hindi writing is very beautiful and I have the idea that I will learn (we'll see . . . .).

Despite the somewhat shabby exterior of the shopping center, it turned out there was quite an upscale clothing store in it as well, which Lonely Planet described, quite accurately, as looking like it had lost its way on the road to NYC, so we checked that out as well. That was even more upscale than the bookstore. The women's clothing (Indian style saris and shalwar kameezes) was, indeed, extremely beautiful, but the prices were actually -- while not NYC level -- high compared to anything we had seen anywhere (e.g., $60 for the long top and matching pants that make up the standard alternative to a sari), so I decided to hold off for a bit. I may go back!

By then it was late afternoon and we were beginning to flag, but we pressed on to a crafts market that Lonely Planet said had lovely things, taking an auto-rickshaw to get there. The crafts market was in stalls around the perimeter of a park, and it did have beautiful fabrics, scarves, wall hangings, etc., but again -- this being our first exploration of what's out there to buy -- we decided just to scope stuff out and save the actual buying for another time (we will be here for almost 4 months, after all). We were just too tired to be able to handle choosing the right things from the absurd profusion of beautiful things that existed in stall after stall after stall, let alone bargain properly for their price. Although we enjoyed seeing the stuff, when we entered the park afterward for a walk at twilight, it was actually a relief just to look at trees and greenery. It was a lovely, big park, well-planted and tended, and well used by couples, families with children, old people, all of whom were striding (the young exercisers) or strolling (the old folks) around the circling paths.

We got another auto-rickshaw to take us back to our hotel, and the driver told us that because of the holiday parade taking place on the main street near the hotel (which we knew about -- the hotel manager told us it was happening from 2 p.m. until 10 p.m., and we had actually been eager to get back to see it, since we left the area before it started), the bridge would be closed and he couldn't get us there. No problem; we said he could drop us off on the western side of the bridge and we would walk across and go the three blocks or so from there to our hotel on foot. The holiday is Muharram, a Muslim holiday that commemorates the defeat of Mohammed's son-in-law in some long-ago battle -- and although we think of India as Hindu rather than Muslim, it's celebrated big-time in Ahmedabad, whether just by the Muslims who live here (many) or by Muslims and Hindus alike, I have no idea. Walking back across the bridge, now closed to traffic, was fun, sort of like when they close Memorial Drive in Cambridge -- everyone out in the street, obviously in a holiday mood, no cars to get between you and river, lights that are strung along the bridge twinkling in the evening dark.

But as we got to the end of the bridge, the crowd started thickening, and the music from the procession (the manager of our hotel, who spoke pretty good English, for some reason rejected "parade" as a word to describe it when we used it, and said it was a "procession") got louder and louder, which was pretty loud considering it was drums rhythmically banging -- bang! bang! bang! -- and Indian music blaring over a loudspeaker. People were crowded onto the ramparts of the bridge from which you could just get a view of the procession a few streets down, and as we stepped off the bridge, there was a profusion of carts selling street food of many sorts, and entire families sitting on the ground having picnics in the dark. The crowd kept getting thicker and thicker as we got nearer to the main street off which the alley to our hotel ran, which was the same street on which the procession was passing. By the time we got there, it was a throbbing mass of people, luckily liberally sprinkled with enough women and children that it didn't seem threatening, but also plenty of young men in groups, definitely making it quite difficult to thread your way through. By the time we were almost at the street where the procession was passing, the crowd was so dense there were moments when it carried you along almost despite yourself, and while I was actually somewhat exhilarated by the whole thing, Bob was -- perhaps more reasonably -- getting uncomfortable, and insisted I put away my camera, with which I was trying to take pictures, hold his hand, and get out of there. Reluctantly, I complied. although I really wanted to get photos of the procession itself, which was an apparently endless stream of people bearing large elaborate silver or tin models of temples or mosques on their shoulders. Even in the relatively short period of time we were out there, we must have seen more than a dozen of these go by, and plenty more seemed to be coming. Although I kept my camera in my bag while we pushed and shoved our way through the crowd (we're talking the worst possible rush hour on the NYC subway here), when at last we somehow emerged, in one piece, into the relatively calm breathing space of the alley in which our hotel was situated, I was able to take a few photos, which give you an idea 0f what I'm talking about. Meanwhile, don't forget that the music is going like crazy the whole time. This is somewhat of a trance state I'm describing. By the time we got up to our room, Bob was completely spent and I was all jazzed up -- not a very compatible combination. Although it was after 8, we hadn't yet eaten supper, which we had been planning to have at a very highly recommended restaurant on the top floor of an upscale heritage hotel that was right around the corner from our hotel. But there was no way that Bob was going back out into that crowd in the street again, so we just sat in silence, each in our quite different mood. Finally, however, as the hour approached 9:30, we both began to relax, and the noise from the street seemed to be dying down, and we were hungry enough that we decided we could at least go back out into the alley and see how things were. As it turned out, although the procession wasn't completely over, the crowd had thinned out a fair amount, and we decided we could make it to the restaurant, which we did. The hotel itself has been created by the conversion of a gorgeous old early 2oth century (late 19th century?) mansion that belonged to a huge upper crust extended Indian family; there were striking large photographs of them in groups and individually hanging in the halls. The place was both faded and grand: muted mustard and red colored walls, old furniture and decor in the lobby, slightly shabby even, but clearly a magnificent thing, with stairways rising up in various directions through a huge interior courtyard to the balconies of rooms, almost like being inside an intricate Escher drawing. The restaurant under a canopy on the roof served a prix fixe dinner of a dazzling number of courses of different vegetarian dishes, mixed with sweets of various mysterious kinds -- a fire in a brazier on the floor in the middle of the room sent off small sparks of light and a bit of warmth (unnecessary, since the temperature was lovely), so it was dim but not dark -- quiet and far removed from the madness of the street. The very final dish was a fruit plate with two leaves neatly folded into packets to hold the anise seed mix that Indians use after eating to "refresh" their mouths -- I hope the photo conveys the charm of the entire meal. We ate well, unwound, enjoyed -- an excellent ending for a busy day. Then we walked back to our hotel to sleep, and that was our first day in the Big City. To be continued. . . .

Wherever You Go, There's Daily Life

Spending a semester in India sounds quite exotic, but we’ve already discovered that on a day-to-day basis here in Anand, our life, not surprisingly, follows a pretty ordinary routine. We get up, maybe go for a bike ride around campus before breakfast, eat a standard breakfast in our apartment, and then bike over to my office so, on the days I have classes, I can prepare for class while Bob writes, and on the days I don’t, I can do email or other chores (I still have some work from Hampshire hanging over my head, a sign of how badly I procrastinated on things in the weeks before I left!), while Bob writes. Then three days a week at noon I teach my class, while Bob takes a break in the staff room (where they have a coffee and tea machine that, while it produces only instant coffee and not cappuccino and lattes, at least in his coffee-deprived state helps fill the void). Perhaps because we haven’t gone at the right hour, we haven’t found a lot of other staff hanging out in the staff room, but Bob did strike up an acquaintance with one faculty member he encountered there who teaches micro-finance. Getting to know other people, when mostly so far we talk only to each other, is definitely a plus.

When I get back from class, at about 1:30 (class ends at 1:10, but usually a student or two comes up to talk after class, which I like), we bike back to our apartment for lunch, which is often leftovers from the previous night’s supper. After lunch, we might read for a bit at “home” and then go back to the office for an hour or so, or go into town on an errand, or take a bike ride beyond the campus. The “events” are things like being invited by some students to come to their “mess” (as they call it) to have late afternoon tea and talk, or hanging out at the children’s playground that is right in front of our apartment block with Vivek’s father, who has been visiting since we got here and often goes there with Vivek’s two daughters in the late afternoon, or playing with the girls, Barkha and Annika, or with the boys who are out there flying kites. Pretty exotic, huh???

This lack of excitement gives me a chance to write about some of the ordinary aspects of our lives that are, nonetheless, different from Northampton, so here they are:

Cows: As everybody knows, and as you see in the photo, cows are all over the place in India, hanging out in the streets and eating garbage. I always thought it was because of some religious symbolism they had (and maybe that’s part of it), but we just learned that at least some of the reason turns out to be that it’s simply too expensive for people to feed and house cows that a) are male and can’t give milk, or b) are female but are not good milkers, for whatever reason (since they’re vegetarian, they can’t eat them, either). So these are basically abandoned cows. In the U.S., of course, if people were abandoning cows to the streets, we’d have somebody round them up and slaughter them, but apparently slaughtering cows is just not done here. So they continue to wander.

Masters and servants: As I already mentioned a few entries ago, we have already acquired – for the first time in my life – a servant: a woman who cleans the apartment, does our laundry, and cooks us supper every night. She comes in the mid-morning, when we’re not around, to clean and do laundry, and at 6 p.m. to prepare supper, which she puts on the table for us at 7 before leaving for home. This is quite standard. In addition, there’s a separate guy who comes every day to clean the bathroom (this is apparently so routine that it’s part of the rent – no one even asked if we wanted him or not). And someone else delivers milk whenever we put a coupon indicating we want it outside our door. And someone else comes each morning to pick up our garbage, which we also put outside our door. I already mentioned the guys who sit on the very ample lawns of the campus pulling weeds out of the grass one by one by hand. You get the picture – there’s a lot of labor available. In addition, the whole set-up of the campus community is quite feudal: the apartment blocks (not tall buildings, but two story units the scale of garden apartments) are labeled “A,” “B,” “C,” and “D” units, with D, the “lowest,” being where the non-professional staff live, and C, B, and A for faculty and administrators, who start out at the low end in C, and gradually as they’re promoted from assistant to associate to full professor move up to A. We’re in C, which could either be a reading of our status, or – on the optimistic side – be the only place an empty apartment was available.

Weddings: This is wedding season in Gujurat, and weddings are going on constantly. You know they’re happening because there is loud music and very often loud fireworks every night that we can hear easily from where we live, even though it’s coming from outside the campus walls. Since the weddings take place outside, in special parks that are the equivalent of U.S. catering halls, the music carries easily. I’ve been trying to persuade Bob, so far unsuccessfully, to leave the campus at night and try to sneak in on one of these affairs (which certainly sound like a hell of a lot of fun), but today – to our surprise – as we were doing errands in town, a wedding party suddenly came pouring out of a nearby wedding park, music blaring. I don’t know why this one was happening during the day, but the costumed musicians, the very dressed-up guests, and – most marvelously – the shimmering fairy-tale horse-drawn carriage in which the bride and groom ride (see photos) give you a glimpse of the fantastic romantic quality of the Indian wedding. It puts even the wedding in the movie of “Sex and the City” to shame. Once again, Tova, Ariel, and Rebecca, if you’re reading this blog, consider this – when you’re ready for your wedding, do you want to think about opting for one in India? The jubilation couldn’t possibly be better, and I bet the price is right, too.

First time in the bazaar

Saturday we went to the bazaar (market) in Anand in a pedicab for the first time; I'm attaching photos so you can get a sense of the profusion of goods, people, vehicles, dust (and the occasional cow). We had a pretty modest shopping list -- we wanted to get mugs to complement the tiny doll-sized tea cups that are all the apartment came with, an electric kettle to heat water in, if possible, and towels a little softer than the two thin scratchy sheets with which we were supplied -- but the overwhelming nature of the whole place made even that a bit daunting for first-time visitors. We did, however, manage to get two mugs that we could stand looking at from the fairly small number of ugly choices that we found (small tea cups seems to be the way to go here) and while we didn't find an electric kettle that we liked, we did find an excellent stainless steel thermos-type tea pot that could hold multiple cups of tea and keep it hot for a prolonged period. I was still feeling too shy to get my bargaining mojo going (I'll need a bit more acclimatisation for that), so Bob did the dealing (English here, unlike in Delhi and other tourist spots I visited on my last trip, is quite minimal at best) -- and we agreed that by offering two-thirds or so, rather than half, of the stated price we probably got "rooked," but for at most a dollar or two, it's hard to get exercised about this. On the towel front, we totally struck out -- maybe we just didn't know where to look (could they hide towels under the row after row in stall after stall of sparkly, bejewelled fabric and saris?, but we didn't see any, or even anything that came close, anywhere. We can try again next time.

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!

New Year's Eve in Gujurat

Yes, it's New Year's Eve in Gujurat -- one hour to midnight! This place doesn't qualify as the most unusual place I've celebrated New Year's Eve -- that honor goes to a tiny village in Himalayan Nepal where Lydia and I -- hello there, Lydia! -- celebrated New Year's Eve 2001 in the light of lanterns (no electricity) with our trekking guide and a young Belgian couple who were just heading down from the higher mountains and happily enough were carrying a bottle of champagne and a delicious Belgian chocolate bar just for the occasion -- but it's also not familiar Northampton, where Bob and I argue every year about whether or not to watch the ball drop over the Hotel Northampton (I usually want to; he usually doesn't).

Normally there's a celebration here on campus, but because of the 11/08 Mumbai attacks there's apparently been a call to keep public celebration of New Year's to a minimum this year (I'm not sure I really see the connection, but perhaps just in a general spirit of mourning), so it's been cancelled. As a result, Bob and I are doing the quiet thing here in the apartment, with a little help from BBC television. We did have something to celebrate this evening, however, which I never would have guessed would be a source of so much joy for me (and rather less guilt than I might have anticipated) -- we had our first home-cooked meal prepared by the woman who is going to cook and clean for us. It was delicious. Prior to this, we have eaten some dinners in a dining room on campus that is reserved for people who come in for in-service training courses -- and since there's no in-service training course going on now, we've been the only two people (except once) in this large empty dining room, with one very attentive waiter hovering over us. I didn't mind it quite as much as Bob, who described it as dining in a setting like that in the movie "Last Year at Marienbad" -- lonely and bleak. In any event, it certainly wasn't homey. Other nights we either made do with cheese sandwiches on khakharas (wheat crispies) heated in the microwave or cold cereal. To explain why we can't cook for ourselves would involve a fairly lengthy description of the type of cooking utensils and marketing options available here which exceed our ability to cope with -- at least at this point -- but everyone (i.e., Vivek and his wife, Charu, and Bob and I) agreed that as clueless westerners we needed someone more skillful at the local scene to both cook and clean for us. So today our new housekeeper (I guess I am too guilty to say "maid") began. I'm embarassed to say I haven't yet mastered her name, and since she doesn't speak any English and we don't speak any Hindi or Gujurati, our communication so far has been quite limited, but she certainly did manage to whip up a pretty terrific meal of dal, mixed vegetable curry, rice, and home-made chapatis in a kitchen that we can barely boil water in. Charu had taken us into town earlier today to buy the necessary spices, vegetables, and other staples for her to use -- without a guiding hand, we would have hardly known where to begin. If our incompetence seems mysterious to you, I'll try to explain it another time -- for now just take it on faith that without household help we'd be in sad shape.

The big event of the week, of course, has been that I've taught my first three classes -- and I think they went pretty well (you'll have to ask the students if you want a real verdict). Following my colleague Sue Darlington's advice (and therefore being consistent with what I believe to be standard practice here), I quickly taught myself PowerPoint (hurray! something I've been wanting to master for ages) and prepared PowerPoints for each of the first three classes. Luckily, I came with a copy of all the reading material for the course, so I was able to give the readings for the first two weeks (so far; I'll do the rest later this week) to the Duplications people here, who put it into a packet to give to each student (again, the standard practice). I have 30 students in my class. They laughed at most of my jokes (e.g., I called the ground-rules for the class "Rules of the Road" and when I came to that entry on the PowerPoint I said something to the effect that while India and the U.S. had a great deal in common, when it came to "rules of the road" there were vast differences, which earned a good chuckle. Do you know on the highway there was actually a sign that said something like "It's a good idea to stay in your lane" -- because otherwise lanes are irrelevant to the drivers (and that includes cars, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians) who are navigating non-highway streets in or between towns.

Anyway, I digress. At the end of the first class, which introduced the areas we would study and a bit about myself, I asked the students -- actually, they call them "participants" at IRMA, not students, a reflection of the progressive tradition of the school -- to write for about ten minutes on why they had chosen to take this course (it's an elective) and/or any particular interests they had in international law or the environment and/or any experiences they had had, either during their IRMA field placements or otherwise, that related to the subjects of the course. I got quite a few interesting responses (being this is a graduate program, and the participants' ages are somewhat diverse, there is a doctor, several engineers, and other folks with interesting backgrounds), and at least a beginning sense of what is on people's minds. After teaching for so many years, and knowing the Hampshire student body well enough that at this point I can almost predict the various things that people will say about many topics, it's somewhat disorienting to look out at a classroom full of faces that I really can't "read" in the same way. But although they certainly don't leap wildly into discussion like Hampshire students do, and they tend to call me "ma'am," which is also a bit disorienting, and their accents are sufficiently challenging that I have to listen very hard when they speak to catch it all (as I suspect they have to do with me), they have certainly been willing to speak up in response to my questions and have consistently said very useful and interesting things. We even got a bit of a debate going in today's class, which was on the controversy in India over whether or not to create more tiger sanctuaries to save the tiger from extinction that would involve the expulsion of local people, especially so-called "tribals," from the area -- one participant being skeptical of so much effort going into saving tigers while people were poor and hungry, and two others being much more "pro-tiger." When I said I was happy to see that I had both a tiger skeptic and two tiger advocates in the class, everyone laughed, and I felt like we were all connecting. At least I hope so.

I was going to put up a bunch of photos on the blog this evening, but since for some reason it was taking an absurdly long time for them to upload, I'll leave it at two -- one of me on the street in Delhi near our guest house when we first arrived, and one of the IRMA campus. I'll try to supplement these soon. Also, since it's five minutes to midnight, it's time to stop. There may be no celebration on the campus -- which is very quiet -- but just out beyond the wall that surrounds the campus, there is plenty of music playing loudly and what sounds like the start of fireworks, so there must be some serious partying going on. Even though it's not that far to walk to the edge of campus, and only about a kilometer more into town, I don't think Bob and I are ready yet to go wandering around out there at midnight, so we'll just enjoy the music from here. Good night all -- and may we all have a grand 2009, wherever we may be.