'V'onderful Varanasi

Our trip to Varanasi this past weekend was quite the adventure. We made a whole lot of plans that we learned when we arrived were going to be unlikely. We dealt with a flight delay that threw off our Sunday plans. And we paid a whole heck of a lot to book a flight there...However, all things considered, it was an unforgettable experience that I would have regretted missing out on for the rest of my life. I always wondered what it would be like to visit Varanasi, and, well, it was in many ways exactly and completely opposite than what I had imagined....but thus is India - a self-contracting axiom I am only just beginning to understand. I daresay, I will never fully be able to comprehend it. So here's me trying my best to enjoy the journey.

Our first stop after checking into our hotel was Sarnath. This is the Buddhist temple where the rickshaw driver dropped us off at, but we were trying to get to the Dhamekh Stupa Monument Site, so we were a little confused.

This is the actualy place we wanted to visit in Sarnath. This is the location of Buddha's first sermon.

We dove into some serious traffic on our way back from Sarnath...At one point we were blocked off from the road so that a train could pass, and that was when we realized that we were the only four women unaccompanied by a man on the road...so all of the guys on motorcycles blatantly stared, without any inhibition. At one point I began waving to people who kept on starting with a smirk on my face, much to Joyce's dismay, who what trying her best to disappear...but I figured, if I'm going to be treated like a celebrity, I might as well own it.

The store owners of a silk factory decided to show us every silk scarf they had in stock when I mentioned I was looking for a scarf. Joyce got a similar treatment when she asked for a sari, but they were much more enthusiastic about getting her money, since saris are a lot more expensive.

Later at night we decided that we wanted to grab a boat on the Ganges so that we could witness a few rituals being performed by the Brahmin there. It lasted about an hour, and it made me wish I understood Hinduism a lot better because I was really lost for most of it. All in all though, it was a cool experience.

We headed for the Ganges again on Sunday morning because we wanted to get some more pictures and stay for low-key this day. The girls were very nice about shopping mainly on Saturday evening so that I could keep the Sabbath holy on my end. It was really awesome of them, and I'm glad I went with such a considerate group. Here's a picture of me in front of a boat with the Indian flag painted against its side.

Joyce, me, and Ashley. These girls are too funny. Honestly, I always laugh so much when I'm with them.

A panoramic view of one of the ghats, and  the Ganges. We spent about two hours on Sunday just boating through the Ganges and taking pictures. We also witnessed a few cremations, which were really interesting, but we could not take pictures at that time because it's a sacred ordinance for the Hindus, so I don't have any pictures from that experience, but I can respect that.

That edifice sinking to my left used to be a temple. Our boat guide, Babu, told us that it had sunk 10 feet over the course of the years. The water levels here at Varanasi are also apparently always changing pretty drastically.

I am very proud of myself because I can effectively read in Hindi now...even though I don't understand what I'm reading...It's progress, and I'm excited to continue learning once I get back home.

ARE YOU READY FOR THIS? Ok, that's a dead body. It's one of three we saw on our Ganges escapades. Yep. And I didn't feel terrible snapping a photo since this is technically a good thing for Hindus. Babu was explaining that under certain specific circumstances bodies should not be cremated, but instead should be put into the Ganges River (infants, people who died from a cobra's bite, etc.). It was kind of shocking because we had expected to see the dead bodies being cremated, which is totally cool in my mind because I was ready for it...but seeing the bodies floating in the water was a little startling, but I did my best not to be a close-minded tourist about it.

The Epic Varanasi Shot...or so I call it. Every time I see pictures of Varanasi, I see pictures like this, that include these building in the back, and these boats, so I wanted to get a picture in front of that area too.

Again proud to announce I can read the Hindi on the side of the boats.

People always stare at me when I wear sunglasses. At least I'm assuming that this is the reason why they stare. Lalit was explaining to me today that it's not as common for people to wear shades here, let alone women because it's usually an expensive commodity to come across. Little do they know my shades were only 10$...which is comparatively a lot, but still not nearly as expensive as they think it is. People also always laugh at me because I smile in my pictures. I guess that's not proper either for ladies to smile.

The Umbrellas. We were on the Ganges for about two hours and it was blazing hot in Varanasi. Babu thoughtfully brought enough umbrellas for each of us along so that we would have some means of blocking out the sun. It was very thoughtful, but it was so hot. 

A little boy playing with some paper in the water by the ghat where people go to specifically to wash clothes.

The baby was being blessed.

This is the ghat that was closest to our hotel, which only about a 5 minute walk from here. It's much nicer in the daytime when the beetles and other insects are hiding away from the sun. We were super startled when we came here at night because we weren't expecting grasshoppers that were inches long and could always fly they jumped so high, or millions of black beetles that totally reminded me from the flesh-eating beetles on The Mummy movies. 

My already clear tan lines on my feet got even worse after our boat-ride in the sun. It's no wonder most tourists aren't seen on the Ganges during the hot hours of the day.

A lot of people were very open about bathing publicly naked on the Ganges. I saw two fully naked men, and one fully naked woman...which was different considering the value of modesty within Indian society, especially in regards to women. The woman that I saw bathing naked was right next to a group of bathing men...which was even more bizarre considering the culture.

I got dizzy every time I climbed up those stares. They were super narrow.

Cows and water buffalo were a lot fatter in Varanasi than any other city we traveled to. Maybe it's got something to do with it being the Holy City for Hindus, but it was really curious. The cows were also much more aggressive here and had no problem stepping into traffic or running through a crowd of people at full speed, which was kind of dangerous, but cool to witness.

Walking back to the hotel after our adventures in the Ganges. While were on the boat, our airline called letting us know about the two hour delay of our already late flight...so we were rushing back to the hotel to grab our confirmation numbers so we could change our flights to get an earlier one. It was sad because we ended up leaving a couple of hours earlier than we planned, so we had to skip the temples...but the truth was that I was templed out at this point, so I was ok with coming back "home." It's funny how Delhi has become our home here in India..it just feels so much more comfortable than anywhere else now that I've been living here for a while.

Cycle-Rickshaws

A lot of the women who ride in motorcycles in Delhi cover their hair, faces, and arms to prevent breathing in pollution and exhaust and getting to your destination looking raggedy and dirty.

Yes, that baby in on her mother's lap riding sideways in the back on a motorcycle. No big deal.

Ashley and I squeezing together in the back of the rickshaw on our hour long frantic ride back to the airport to catch our earlier flight. We were startled to learn that the airport was so far away from the ghats and the tourist spots in the city, but we improvised and made a lot of friends along the way.

The airport. Back to Delhi for my last week in India. So bittersweet.

Defining Women's Empowerment

Irena showing Sarita some pictures.

I came to India to work with Vidya's Munirka women's group with the intention of empowering the women of this community, a vague and ambiguous objective that I've had to revisit and redefine time and time again for the past six weeks. After working with the women and meeting with several women's movement activists and NGOs, I feel that I've begun to understand what the goal of empowering women entails, and how versatile one must be in order to reach such a goal.

After all, who gets to define empowerment? 

My inner struggles began as I tried to answer this question for myself as it applied to the slum women I have been working with. I felt discouraged in the beginning as I realized it was nonsensical to try to impose my definition of empowerment on these women. Their  lifestyles, goals, and ideas about progress and development remained separate and distinct from my own reality in so many ways.

Raj Kumari and Lata taking notes in class.

Feeling that I had what it took to be an empowered female, I considered what aspects of my life I should try to pass on to them...I thought about my dreams, my aspirations, my individual goals and accomplishments; and I quickly realized that a 21-year old university graduate, who had the luxurious option to leave her family and career behind to travel to a distant and foreign country in order to volunteer abroad had little in common with the women of the community center I was working with.

I was stumped.

I realized that language has such an imprisoning effect on humanity. We are so bound by words, concepts, and ideas that must constantly be redefined, or else risk losing applicability and substance altogether.

And so I began to explore the idea of empowerment and what it meant to me...which led me to the question of what empowerment would mean for these women. It was unrealistic, after all, to expect that in spite of the undisputed language barrier between me and the women, I would be able to convey fully what my purpose here was to them...I was still exploring this myself. I emerged myself in the lives of the women. We joked, gossiped, and shared in each others insecurities and triumphs. I learned of their homes, their families, the areas in which they felt accomplished and unsuccessful. We expressed ourselves without words...as we weren't able to even if we wanted because of the English-Hindi barrier...but with signs and tones and styles and passion and emotion.

A few of the girls (left to right): Pooja, Neetu, Krishna, Arti, Manju, and Soniya

And I learned and felt that global feminism...or a specific global agenda for women everywhere...is an oversimplification of a complex reality. As Jaya ji put it the other afternoon, "One cannot be too drastic." One must be malleable in defining the needs of individual and unique women because the truth of empowerment it's so distinct for each woman...and the way to empower a woman is to go to her, and learn of her individual needs.

I saw this idea in practice in Munirka. Empowerment for Pooja, a 14 year old girl I worked closely with who is neither literate in Hindi or English, meant being able to write her own name, and her best friend's name. In Pooja's life, empowerment meant having confidence in herself, and learning that she mattered to someone outside the context of her family. To Pooja, being able to differentiate between B and D and C and G was enough to bring a smile to open her up to the possibilities before her. Before we began working together, she rarely ever communicated with anyone outside of her best friend, Shabnam. Now she has become more vocal and expressive. My point is, empowerment is different for everyone...and so creating a one size fits all formula for empowerment, development, activism, feminism, or any other concept is a distorted impression of reality.

Mamta unscrambling the letters of the alphabet and putting them in order.

Once I realized this, I began to have more success with the women at Munirka. I began to see the results I was looking for all along: to see the girls pursue their dreams whatever they may be...and feel valued by their community, and subsequently, their world at large. It's a comparatively small accomplishment to teach a woman to recognize her ABCs, but if it give her value, than it's a tool of empowerment.

Other women had more ambitious goals..and this is to be expected. But to me, being empowered as a woman means I have the freedom to do things that are relevant to my life without being looked down upon or dismissed. It means I can better myself and my circumstances in the ways that I desire (whether I am a CEO, a mother, a political activist, a housewife, a doctor, a daughter...in the city or as a village woman). No matter what path a woman chooses in life...empowerment means that they get to choose what matters most to them. No one else should try to define what empowerment should mean to somebody else.

My individual goals. My dreams. My beliefs. My career (or lack thereof). My life...

This is my power.

Adventures in Amritsar

Joyce and I knew we were in foreign territory from the moment we left the train station and tried to meet up with our driver. I was told he would be carrying a sign with my name on it, and after a few minutes of looking, we were relieved to find a Sikh man who spoke almost perfect English. However, he turned out to be the director of the taxi drivers, and motioned us over to our real driver, a man in his early 30s who spoke absolutely no English, and only seemed to understand basic Hindi since he spoke what I could only assume was Punjabi. Through broken Hindi, we managed to direct him to our hotel, where we checked in and ate lunch, and then headed out to our first adventure, Wagha Border.

Wagha Border

I would have to dub this my "Most Indian Experience" thus far. On Saturday afternoon after checking into our hotel, the Hong Kong Inn, Joyce and I braved a crowd of thousands at the Indian-Pakistani border closing ceremony. There is a ceremony every evening at the border closing, and thousands gather to witness this celebration, which is amazing considering the historical animosity between Pakistan and India.

Our view from our crowded corner. It was almost impossible to try to get this shot through all of the human heads and the shoving that was going on.

The people who are sitting down there are a part of the closing ceremony. Those students are going to dance and sing and get the crowd excited. It really is like a pep rally. The people who are sitting down on the bleachers behind them must have arrived hours in advance. We got there two hours early and got to seats.

The guards kept on patrolling through this area because it was so insane. People were pushing and shoving to try to get past each other to get a good shot of the ceremony. Joyce and I were smart enough to avoid this area, but we were also overwhelmed where we decided to stand.

This is the best picture we could get together. It was a miracle to try to get my arms up to take the picture...we were THAT squished in the middle of all these people. We were dripping in sweat...both ours and other peoples, and we both lost our scarfs a few times, but were lucky and aggressive enough to demand them back. I dropped my clutch and phone a couple of times, but there were some brave school kids to our left who were nice enough to help me grab it back.

People dancing and chanting in the middle of the ceremony, which began at sunset.

All of these people were standing directly in front of us. Note that they are holding on to each other and to poles for any kind of balance. On several occasions, Joyce and I were moved against our will. There was no such thing as standing still...You were either shoving to keep your spot, or shoving to move past other people.

These people were directly across from us. They too were going nuts.

This was our corner. Joyce and I eventually felt a bit overwhelmed and claustrophobic and too hot, so we had to battle our way down the stairs against the influx of people trying to make it into the spots we'd just left. Most people didn't seem to understand basic laws of physics...If I'm standing here, you cannot be standing in the same exact spot. The girls in blue and white became our friends through this whole ordeal because I kept on yelling at the guys to stop pushing at the little girls. Even though I spoke no Hindi, I got my message across. Most people asked me if I was their teacher, and were impressed when I responded that I wasn't but that didn't mean I wanted them to fall off the railing. Those people helped us in our endeavors to protect the young girls and even ended up protecting Joyce and I from the predatory stares of less well intentioned men.

These people were sitting on the railing and were really far up and completely fearless.

The girl left shortly after we headed out. We noticed that we were all covered from head to toe in human sweat. It was so intense to have so many people concentrated in that small space. I was also really happy to see that after we stood up for them, the young school girls were more than willing to stand up for themselves and for us, since we didn't speak Hindi. The girls even pushed people to make room for us next to them. I loved the friends we made that day.

Golden Temple

We visited the Golden Temple a couple of times before leaving Amritsar, one at night and one in the day time. Both times were very busy, but my favorite time to visit was in the nighttime when the temple was lit up beautifully against the backdrop of darkness. Getting there was quite the experience itself because the car wasn't allowed to go all the way up to the temple, so a bike rickshaw took us up up a crowded market street to the door and waited until we came back. The market place is always a fun place to ride past.

The Golden Temple at night.

We were both so exhausted by this point because we'd been up since 5am, been on a 6 hour train ride, and survived the crowd at the Wagha Border...but we wanted a picture of us in front the the temple, so here is one.

Joyce and I rocking out the "covered hair" look..and feeling very touristy in sun glasses. I guess Indian women are just used to the sun so they don't really wear sunglasses...the men do though...the men also wear Western style clothing regularly, while it's still less common to see women wearing anything other than the traditional styles.

We spent about five minutes with this one woman trying to get a right picture of us together next to the temple. She seemed to understand us just fine, but did not seem to know how to use a digital camera. It was a really funny, and aggravating experience. After several tries, she still covered the temple by putting us in front of it...

...So we asked a British guy to take the picture..& he was stunned by how well we spoke English. I guess we blend in?

Jallian Wala Bagh

In 1919, General Dyer declared it unlawful to hold any kind of demonstrations in an attempt to stifle the independence movement in India. In defiance of this unjust law, thousands of non-violent demonstrators united at this area to celebrate Baisakhi, a Sikh festival. In retaliation, the general opened fire on thousands of men, women, and children. The number of dead remain a mystery as British authorities sought to minimize the effect by stating only a few hundred were killed and as angry revolutionaries sought to maximize the effect by claiming that several thousand were killed. Any number in-between is possible, and devastating. Today there is a memorial in the sight of this infamous massacre.

This was just a really cool looking tree in the middle of the park.

The memorial is located in the middle of the park region.

Seeking shelter from the bullets, many victims jumped into a well located in the area, only to drown as a large number of demonstrators sought to do the same.

An explanation of the memorial. I have to say that it was ironic and somewhat inconsistent that the park is said to be an "everlasting symbol of non-violent and peaceful struggle for freedom" when one of the "martyrs" celebrated in a galley inside the park glorified the death of a man who murdered a British officer in England and was subsequently hanged. I thought that including this particular individual among the real martyrs was disrespectful to their memory, and incredibly inconsistent

There was nowhere to run since the park was completely sealed off with the exception of the entrance from which the soldiers entered. The only exit was an alley behind the men with guns.

Durgiana Temple

The remaining two temples we visited were really just to kill time. We had a little over an hour after lunch to spend in Amritsar before our train departed at 3:10PM, so our driver took us to these two temples. It was really awesome that we didn't have to pay for any of our attractions in Amritsar. As you'll note, this Hindu temple shared a lot of the same architectural design as the Golden Temple.

Lalit told us that it's bad luck to pass by the bell in the entrance without ringing it. A lot of the people entering the temple did this, and even raised their kids up in the air so that they could do the same.

Mata Lal Devi Mandir

This temple was not nearly as awesome from the outside to be honest, but it was a lot of fun from the inside, so we took lots of pictures. We weren't sure if we were being blasphemous or not by taking pictures, but we did the Indian thing, and figured we'd take pictures unless someone yelled at us to stop. I'm really glad since we got some fun pictures. This temple was like a maze.

Crawling through this black tunnel to the next area of the temple.

There were a few rooms like this and we thought this was a really cool effect.

The staircases led us to the next section of the temple.

Heading back down to the ground level.

Literally getting our feet wet. This tunnel was towards the end and the water is supposed to wash away our sins or something.

Amritsar to Delhi on the Shan-E-Punjab

Since we couldn't get a seat on the express train, we rode the eight hours on the non-AC chair car, a true Indian experience. There were several benches along both sides of the car, each fitting three people. Joyce and I sat together next to the aisle, and we quickly learned that people who do not buy tickets are also welcome to board the train and ride without a seat until they've reached their stop. It's interesting to note that women and the elderly are usually guaranteed a seat, whether or not they've bought one because people more naturally give up their seats for them. Considering the nature of our trip, I can't really say I was inclined to give up my seat to anyone, but I did witness some people doing so for the sake of a mother or her child. There were several stops along the way, so there were many people that shifted in and out of our train compartment. It was so busy at times that people stood even in the middle of two benches facing each other. Other people sat at the open door facing the outside of the train. Most people just stood around and tried to be as comfortable as they possibly could. We had no problems on the train for the most part. It was a really quaint experience actually. We ended up playing with the kids sitting across from our bench, and making small talk with people, and sharing smiles and random acts of kindness with the strangers around us. Only on one occasion someone tried to shove us our of our seats, but we were not shy about making sure that didn't happen. We had, after all, paid for the tickets...and it's rude for someone else who is not willing to give up their own seat to expect it of someone who has nothing to do with their own internal guilt. Otherwise, we made it back safely to Delhi at 11PM and rushed through the metro to make it to the last train leaving from that station. That was quite the experience in and of itself since we ended up doing some legally gray things to get past security quicker. We made it back to Hauz Khas by midnight, and fell straight to bed.

The best shot we could inconspicuously get of the train without looking like total tourists.