Mittwoch, 24. Februar 2010

Bookworm

Books have become a way of life. On the one hand there are the Classics, the great big volumes that take too much time and effort to be read in normal life. And anyway, they at least resemble education, mental challenge, productivity.
Then there are the books about India. Not travel guides or fact books about finding your chakra. Fiction, set in India. It gives insight that would otherwise be closed off. Yet there prevails a dilemma. If I stick to Indian authors, I don’t understand them. Not the language itself is a problem, more the content. It’s like trying to read a book on Advanced Chemistry and skipping the introduction. The letters and words one can understand, the meaning they are trying to convey, however, remains obscure.
Then there are the foreign authors who have long-standing connections with India, have travelled extensively, speak a bit of the language. Yet they are and always will be foreigners. They are perceived and treated as such and the horror of the dirt and poverty is either played down as to make it seem less than invisible, or the author loses himself in only those, sometimes even making them seem picturesque. Even after the descriptions of a rapt admirer, you feel slightly as though you’ve been punched in the stomach when you realise he’s been staying in a 5-star hotel, while he makes you feel guilty for indulging in such pleasures yourself. “What’s the use of going to India if you’re going to hide?” they ask while probably having a hot shower every day. On the whole, they don’t give more insight in how to understand this country and its people than does the Lonely Planet (don’t get me wrong, I revere the traveller’s bible as much as the next backpacker, but at times it can frustrate).
The obvious answer is expatriate Indian writers. But apart from Salman Rushdie, no names come to mind. Suggestions are welcome; especially since it can be quite disconcerting coming up for air from Henry Miller and finding oneself in conservative India. The contrast is just too great.

Dienstag, 16. Februar 2010

Keith Urban Remix

But sadly, the tiger is not in my tank. According to the latest accounts (verified by well-placed sources, i.e. one high-school student and Kitchen Aunty), said tiger is rumored to be roaming the forest outside the school. So should activities here come to a sudden halt, flowers should be sent to Bailur Nursing Home. Just in case.

Legal Aliens

After careful study and observation, I have come to following conclusion: foreigners in India can generally be categorised into 3 different, well, categories. Here are the fruits of my labour (not to be enjoyed in all seriousness):
The Expat: the typical expatriate or working foreigner can usually be seen in Western clothes or, at least for women, the more comfortable variety of Indian dress. Never in a Saree. There is also a continuously a mix of disbelief and somewhat grudging appreciation (sometimes even love) on his face as he looks on above the heads of the Indians who are invariably shorter than him. Favourite congregation sites are establishments such as Pizza Hut or Café Coffee Day (the Indian Starbucks).
The Traveller: mostly spotted wearing baggy clothes and more often than not a hairband, this genre can often be seen sporting the tell-tale backpack and looking slightly dazed and overwhelmed. Though loath to enter the abovementioned westernized establishments for fear of marring the “Indian Experience”, you can come across them there guiltily indulging in a chocolate brownie. Comes in groups of two.
The Spiritually Enlightened: without doubt my favourite group, it is full of paradoxes. These are the travellers who come to benefit from the Ashrams and Gurus India has to offer. They are seen almost only in typical Indian dress, more often than not in white (highly practical in this country, I tell you) and barefoot. Yet while affecting to be more Indian than the Indians themselves (they do not, for example, adhere to the unwritten rule among travellers that one foreigner at least acknowledges another in a multitude of natives), they are sticklers for hygiene, refusing to use common plates and sit on the floor as is normal here. For all I know in my ignorance, it might bother their karma.
Please note that these categories are by no means absolute or exclusive.

Dienstag, 9. Februar 2010

Slumdog

I promised you more about Mumbai, and here you go. I especially want to tell you about one tour I took. In the world of tours, this can probably be classified as an “umbrella tour”. You know, the ones where the guide runs along in front holding up a colourful umbrella so that the 50 geriatrics following know where he is.
This one was same same. But different. You see, I went to a slum. Before bursting out in indignation that the poverty of others is not really a tourist attraction, let me say that the tour operator is actually an NGO which has a school and community center in the slum and uses the tours as a way to generate funds. Furthermore, there is a no photo policy, implemented by the slum-dwellers themselves.
Having said this much, here some facts and figures: About 55% of Mumbai’s 16 million people live in slums, so about 8 – 9 million people. Dharavi, where I went, is the largest slum in Asia with about 1 million people in an area of nearly 2 km2. It also has a yearly GDP of 650 million US $. A lot of young, working people also live in the slum, simply because it is located in the heart of the city, the rents are affordable and there is an acute shortage of housing in Mumbai in general.
So on Thursday afternoon me and 4 other young travellers piled into a Jeep and drove through the craziness of Mumbai to reach Dharavi. What struck me is that it is, basically, another part of town. The houses are small and close together, but they are clean and most of them sport a television. The people on the street go about their lives just as anywhere else. Nearly all the children I saw were wearing a school uniform and seemed interested to see us.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not glorifying the lot of a slum-dweller. There is only one toilet per 1500 persons and so the street effectively becomes one. The work to be had is back-breaking and 14 – 18 hours of work will get you 200 Rs (ca 3 Euros) a day. In my village that would get you by, but for example in Colaba, the tourist part of Mumbai, a coffee costs 60 to 70 Rs. In the end, had I come straight from Europe, I would very possibly have been shocked. But having spent a lot of time in rural India (as do over 90% of Indians), I am sad to say, I have seen even worse poverty.

Samstag, 6. Februar 2010

Welcome Home...?

After spending some time in one of my new favorite cities, Mumbai, I boarded a local bus back in my district, still in a big city state of mind. So I was rather perplexed when a youth 3 seats down from me (not older than 23), on catching my attention, didn't ask me where I was from (which is the standard question). No, he told me to cover up. His modesty had been outraged by a centimeter of skin showing between my jeans and my sweater, which must have become visible why I was settling into my seat.
On the up side, the taxi-driver here didn't really try to rip me off. So there are up sides and down sides.
More to mind-boggling Mumbai in the days to come, right now I need a shower and some sleep.