Last Day Standing

It was another busy last day in Delhi. I usually save all the shopping for the last minute and then run out of money with too many unaccomplished tasks about 6 hours before the plane skips off the tarmack. This time is no different, except that I've wrought a different type of tragedy. Two blissful days ago, I had inadvertantly knicked M's vibrating alarm clock from her room in Mussoorie. I didn't have a watch with me and she suggested that I use the alarm clock to determine when my sessions with the tutor were finished. A great suggestion at the time, but now, as the bus pulled out of the Haridwar bus stand taking my M off into the early evening dust and chaos towards Dehradun, I felt a bump in my backpack that I had not noticed previously...

My heart sunk. I knew what it was. I knew after tears and hugs and kisses she was going to kill me. After parting shots and parting photographs and video monologues, I had stolen M's vibrating alarm clock and her only means of getting up in time for Hindi classes, 5AM trains and flights home. I kept repeating to myself that at least I didn't take her passport, or her bankcard or her deodorant, but it did no good.

I did what every erring man does when he's gone wrong. I drowned my sorrows in tasty treats. The train I rode from Hardiwar to Delhi was the Shatabdi. Shatabdi means "fast fancy train with lots of free food." Samosas and uncle chipps spicy snacks were downed with boxes of Appy Fizz, the carbonated apple juice drink. I had the Indian Railway's infamous tomato soup, mishti doi (sweet yogurt) and ready to eat tins of shai paneer, daal and rice. The thin hanky style romali roti was not as great as kamal's but it did the job just fine. So fine in fact that I had to beg off the finishing course of ice cream.

We rolled into Delhi at 11:00PM still under a cloud of sorrow and guilt. I read my book, The Life and Death of Great American Cities (I'm tentatively titling my future bestseller "Reading Jane Jacobs in India") and listened to a mix CD to avoid any social contact with my fellow riders. In my guilty funk, it was easy to ignore all eye contact and shun typical train relations. I've been not so much of a conversation magnet this time around. I'm still learning indian customs, but I now know that I don't need to respond to every request for my attention.

Today while trying to run all my last minute errands I slipped into a conversation with Golden Yogi. A smarmy Sikh man who tried to read my palm and tell me my future. He was nice enough and worldly (he'd been to LA) but his turban was too close over his eyes. He also confused me with a "bindhiesque" forehead marking which I haven't seen on many sikhs. As I approached him, I noticed his partner walk away quickly. His partner came back into play when I motioned to leave. He played the second man to a T when he caught my attention and gave me a thumbs up (not a Thums up), pointing at Golden Y and indicating that he was both knowledgable and trustworthy.

I practiced newly learned hindi phrases with my new friends:

Mujko vishwaas nahi hai -- "I do not believe."
Ye asambhav hai -- "It is impossible."
Mujhe chalnaa chahiye -- "Please allow me to go."
Maaf Kijiye, mai bahut jaldi me huun -- "Excuse me, I am in a great hurry."

I waved, namasted and walked away. Things I wished I had remembered to say:

Tum Ullo Ho -- "You are a stupid owl."
Mai sabse kharab hindi bolta huun -- "I speak the most rotten Hindi." (just for old times sake)

I don't know how to say the plural form for you or owl, so I would have had to say it Golden Y and his second man. It is interesting how Indians are not so fond of owls. In general, they are considered a stupid animal and to be called an owl is a great insult. In the west we think of owls as wise and old. There is probably some great analytic cultural comparison looking at how we insult each other. Feel free to look it up.

I do know this, if really want to piss someone off in Hindi, address them as "Sala." Out of the multitude of terms describing Indian familial relations, this one translates to brother in law. I used to think that Indians just didn't like their brother in law's; however, Kevin, M's friend from Berkeley noted the implied close friendship with the brother in law's sister... duh.

I finished up the day with a few more journeys across Delhi via autorickshaw and the Delhi metro. I stopped by the Delhi Deaf Women's Sweatshop to give our friends my parting regards and dropped off the vibrating alarm clock for M to pick up when she stops by in a couple of weeks on her way back to the US. My taxi should be here in an hour, so I'll go stare at Paharganj's vital street life and try not to step in cow shit. Wish me luck.

 
Crooked just the same

My Hindi is still the most rotten, but it is slowly improving. Mussorie is proving to be a much better place to study in July/August than it was in February. M and I are ensconced in the christian guest house at the top of the big hill and few hundred meters down from the language school. I've actually been making all of the scheduled classes. I don't miss the 30 minute walk uphill through the cold rain and snow.

It has been raining quite a bit, although we had a respite over the weekend. The mountains here are incredible. We had dinner a few nights back with a fellow student who lives in the Fruitvale area in Oakland. We sat on his back patio and ate local cheese and stared googley eyed at the snowcapped peaks of the Yamunotri and the Gangotri Glacier until the clouds snuck up underneath us and the sun set.

We are sparingly using the digital camera. There are just too many vistas to capture. It does have a nice video record feature that I've been using to torture M. I wait till she is napping, then I attack her with recording camera in hand (not that sort of attacking). Although I get a big kick out of it, M may be counting the days until I leave her to nap in peace.

The rain makes it easy to study or sleep. There is a small posse of likeminded students staying at our guest house, so we sit around reading Hindi books and making fun of missionaries and each other. We stayed up late last night drinking rum and whiskey and a local rice-based alcohol that did not (as some were worried of) cause us to go blind. There were rumors that the rocket-fuel-esque drink would make us all sterile, but we've not verified this theory so far. From what I can tell, consumption of said hooch has not effected the local population growth.

We've been talking a lot about disability and identity development in India. It turns out the too many of the language school students and guest house residents happen to study Anthropology / Sociology. I turn back to reading my Hindi books and practicing writing the script whenever the topic turns to focaultian analysis.

I have had great conversations about young indian call-center employees and the unsustainable trajectory that the industry is following. It turns our that call center jobs that are supposed to level the global playing field are really opportunities to turn young educated indians into wage slaves and office drones. Economic opportunity is helpful to some degree, but there are no avenues for advancement and people get trapped by extravagent lifestyles and debt. We speculated on what the indian call center employees will do when their jobs are outsourced to China.

Will there will be an exodus of millions of over-educated, under-employed, american accented, english speaking indians back to the simple life of the rural villages?

Probably not. But I do see increased trends in repetitive stress injuries and depression in this new generation of worker bees. What a wonderful time for the pharmacuetical companies to save the day. Prozac futures in the subcontinent are high!

 
Connecting the dots

I had a long and productive meeting with an NGO that specializes in architectural accessibility. They are a small organization an are just getting the ball rolling in regard to providing engineers, architects and developers feedback on how their designs comply with international accessibility guidelines.

The meeting was a typical 4 hour marathon session with multiple cups of chai and plates of biscuits. I learned a great deal more about india's access nightmare. The first of which is that my friends in the NGO did all their work for free. Although there is a law mandating access, there is no actual enforcement of it. As such, projects have no reason to comply with a law that will never be enforced.

The few projects they've worked on have included access facilities "just for the fun of it." These amenities provided out of the kindness of the project's hearts have been a positive step in increasing awareness of the needs of the disabled, but have done surprisingly little in terms of actually increasing their independence.

For example, while a wheelchair user can independently get to any station while they are in the system, they can't make it to the elevator door. The shiny new elevators on the new Metro system that I previously spoke so highly of cannot be independently accessed by someone from the street level. They either had a nice concrete ramp that fed down to a 12 inch curb, or had a ramp that was obstructed by metal barrier.

The second nightmare access issue is that there are no set standards for accessibility. There is just vague language that requires architects to make the buildings they design "accessible." There are no definitions of accessible, so they leave it up to the designer which groups of people with disabilities will be allowed to utilize their designs.

Delhi is creating a series of accessible islands. There is no integration with the city streets and no way for users to connect the dots between isolated access zones. You have to give them credit for moving things forward, but you have to question the roadmap that they are following.

Following my great meeting, I left sweltering Delhi for the hill station of Mussorie. Finally, I've met up with M, to join her on the honeymoon that she started several months ago (without me). I'm very happy to see her. I'm elated. I'm dizzy and giddy and out of breath... I may be experiencing some sort of elevation sickness. But we'll call it "love" for now. Mussorie is beautiful and much more pleasant in July than in February. I start Hindi classes tomorrow.

It will be nice to gain a better handle on the culture and be able to interview more people about accessibility. We'll see how much my mind is able to soak up in the short week I've got left.

 
I'm on a ramp to nowhere

As I'm prone to do, I spent yesterday geeking out over Delhi's many public transportation opportunities. I rode the Metro to the end of the line and back to peruse the various stations. I was prepared to act like a dumb tourist and pretend that I got off at the wrong stop if need be, but there was no need.

On my joyride, I saw many groups of indians crammed into elevators. I saw many people following the detectable warning tactile guides from the Metro entrance to the boarding platforms. I saw many people reading the station and destination information as it flashed over the LED display screens simultaneously in hindi (amber) and english (green). I saw seating and space on the vehicles reserved for the "old and physically challenged." I did not however, see ANY people with disabilities.

The system is cheap (6 to 12 rupies per ride depending on the destination) so as far as I could tell it was a mixed demographic. People from different classes, religions, occupations and economic stratas peacefully sitting together in air-conditioned, space-aged comfort.

While I'm impressed, I know that countless people have been displaced to make way for Metro stations and rail rights of way. The DMRC is not as huge an entity as the Indian Railways Corporation, but from what I've read on my Delhi Urban Planning mailing list it is equally ruthless in commandeering real estate. It is the specialty of governments everywhere, but indian beaurocracies are hyper-efficient at steamrolling the rights* and needs of the little guy. You see and hear about this happening all the time - from urban Mall developers erasing slum villages to hydroelectric facilities submerging whole rural indigenous communities.

I've also been relying on the Delhi bus much more often than in previous travels. I pay 7 rupies for a 40 minute to hour and a half ride from where I stay to the approximate heart of the city. The catch is that I have to stand the whole way and the vehicle is completely full. It is unfortunate, as the buses are designed for people much shorter than I, so I can only see the street surface and adjacent traffic not the actual surroundings as we make our way into the citay.

Last night I was surrounded by 6 women - each one 4 feet tall and wrapped in a brilliantly colored sari. They fit the profile of many of the slum dwellers and street folks that work intersections in groups for alms. They usually have a sleeping (or wailing) child or two in tow. I used to think that they were bangladeshis because of the darkeness of their skin, but they could be from any rural district. When you see them on the streets, they give you the eye, then attach themselves to your vehicle while gesturing to their mouths and chanting "Baby hungry! Baby hungry! Chapatti! Chapatti!"

On the bus, they were without children. Other riders warily watched as they encircled me. Without my knowledge or permission, they opened up my backpack and dug around. All the while the bus conductor tried to convince them to pay their fare. Luckily I wasn't holding anything of value in my bag or in my pockets. They realized I was of no value and immediately set their saris dragging through the sea of people in the aisle and hanging from the ceiling bars to the front of the bus where they hopped off.

With high drama like this to entertain me, how could I ever think of taking the autorickshaw again?

* Of course the peoples of downtroden and backward castes have no rights.

 
The smell of rain is a little different in Delhi. It kills most of the fumes and dust. As a result it smells less. Instead of being openly assaulted, you have to sneak up on scents. Or stay inside.

Nonetheless, I need an umbrella. I left mine at the exurban enclave of patparganj. I am staying with a sweet couple that we met last time we were here. I had asked the man (a retired garmet maker) if the monsoon was over, and I thought that he had said yes, but his english is about as good as my hindi. So I may have to bargain for a new one.

It is odd not to experience India with M. I will meet her on Saturday (If Ganesha grants me the strength to make the 6AM train). Now, I sit in the internet cafe that I've written so many previous missives. I have grown to love hating the other people that frequent this spot. English, French, Italian, Australian, American and Israeli hippies who are here to learn different yoga techniques and come closer to finding nirvana. I wish that they were all closer to Kurt Cobain, but I'm happy that they bring money to India. As you can tell, I'm conflicted.

I'm in this godforsaken hippie tourist ghetto, because I'm going to meet with my friends at the Delhi Deaf Women's Sweatshop. I may talk to them about transit accessibility, and learn about how Delhi's system works (or doesn't work) for them. I'm worried that they will call me fat. Luckily the rain makes me look thinner.