First night stay in a village:

Off we went one evening to a far away village (25 km, about 12 miles) to spend the night. It was Tanvi and the doctor (vetenarian) and Pankaj and I. It was the most I’ve ridden on a bike (the trip took us about an hour). On the way the trusty, albeit sometimes confused, guide showed me places where riots and all had taken place.
Aside on the caste issue in the region: There are two castes in the region that have been fighting for some time now. They are the Meenas and the Gujjars. The Meenas are put in the lower group (scheduled tribes) and therefore they have more reserved seats (think affirmative action) in high positions in the government. The Gujjars have been fighting for a position in the lower grouping so they get more reservations as well. For that they do things like stop buses, cars and people from entering villages and generally disrupting everyday people’s lives. I thought it was fascinating that a group was fighting for a LOWER position in society, it gives a glimpse of what affirmative action has done here. For more information, there have been some more Gujjar strikes in Rajasthan in the past couple days (look at Indian news websites for more info, or just google it). For example, right now our town is cut off from main cities nearby because the police have stopped all buses and trains to prevent large groups of Gujjars from meeting in any one place. Yesterday the rumor was that 75 people were killed somewhere in the area. No worries though, we are only allowed to go to non-Gujjar majority villages, which is not good for our “random sampling”.
So we passed through villages where the milk vans for the org I work for had been stopped and the driver had been beaten up. The next day the milk van had gone through its route with police protection. It was interesting because the village we visited was mainly Rajputs (olden royalty? But very poor nonetheless). They are a very proud caste which does not like their women to work outside the house.
Once we got to the village, lots of kids came to the main woman’s house.
Aside on the organization: Srijan has started groups in villages of about 10-15 women who save money, buy buffaloes, collect milk and sell it to the town where we are living (the headquarters). So we are surveying women from a sample of villages who are part of the groups and who are not to see what the health differences are.
Each village has a main woman, whose house we were going to stay at. The village was called Toda Ka Gothra. Once we got there, lots of kids came over to see us. Pankaj told them we were there to vaccinate them at which they were terrified and refused to talk to us. Then about 6-7 women came for a meeting and we explained why we were there. One of them thought we were school teachers. They also brought us tea with goat milk in it, which was really delicious. Next stop: camel milk!
There was a little bit of confusion and we spent a couple hours looking at buffaloes, checking their health, sampling the milk fat and looking at newly born calves. I’ve learnt a lot about this type of livelihood and learnt how important one buffalo and her health is for the entire family. Not to mention the baby buffaloes are SO CUTE!! By the time we came back it was pretty late and all the women (which we wanted to talk to) were cooking/feeding/eating. So we rested at the main persons house (Mohankanwarji) and played with the children who had come there. Everytime I saw a lady with a small baby I made a mental note to talk to her – since our sample is only women with children under 5.
The meal we had consisted of achar (raw mango marinated in spices, oil and chili powder), fresh rotis (bread – so good) and kadhi (a liquid lentil soup usually eaten with rice). All of this was cooked on a stove which used cow dung as its fuel. But my god the rotis were amazing! My main problem so far has been that I usually have one bite and am ready to die…the food is incredibly spicy. I usually try to hide it (for an unsuccessful experience – read dhaba entry). But once again, everyone knew by the end that it was really spicy for me. To make things better they brought out fresh buttermilk (once again, amazingly delicious) and put lots of sugar in it. That’s something I’ve seen everywhere here, they really go out of the way to make sure you are comfortable. During the meal, we were directly asked (again): So what caste are you? I hate being put on the spot like this. It usually doesn’t make a difference but they are always curious. Pankaj had said he usually says whatever comes to his mind but oftentimes when he says a lower caste name they treat him a little differently. This time we politely explained that where we come from there are no castes and everyone is on a equal footing. Because they thought we were from Bombay and Chennai they let it go and said something about things being different in the cities.
After the men were banished out of house, Mohankanwarji declared that we were like her daughters for the night and that if we were scared at any point or anything to tell her. What we would be afraid of I’m not sure but she made that very clear. We set up cots made of rope outside. At this point I looked up and realized that I had never seen the sky that amazing. There were at least 10 times more stars there than anywhere else I’ve been. Its then that it hit me, here I am sitting in a mud house (fairly big, but still), with no electricity, no cell phone service, with a cow tied to the front door. I had not felt content like that in a long time. I had already figured out that I need less sleep here ( I sleep at midnight and wake up by 5:30). Sitting there made me realize that this place was really clean, no noise, no pollution, and people were leading very simple lives in which small things made them happy.
Just as I was relishing the moment, out of nowhere a sand storm started. Let me tell you, when visibility suddenly becomes zero it is very frightening. So we picked up the cots and ran into a room where there was room only for three cots. Once we were settled we realized it was raining outside. While it isn’t the rainy season here there are random small bouts of rain that last for a bit and then stop. So we sat for a bit listening to the rain. Mohankanwarji (who loved to talk) kept us up late into the night talking about the village, her children, her buffaloes and the milk they produce. We were all falling asleep when we finally went to our respective cots and that is when I fell asleep immediately (to wake up about four hours later with loud cock-o-doodle-dos outside our door, which lasted about 3 hours. We went out to find Mohankanwarji cooking cleaning already (it was about 5:30).
Early morning is a very beautiful time in the village. It was slightly cold and there were sounds of people slowly waking up. After two cups of tea, one from the neighboring house who said they HAVE to feed the visitors, we headed out to the first house, the woman who would take us to other houses to meet mothers of small children.
We got 5 interviews done in a couple hours, in each house giving a cup of tea and then because we said we’d had a lot of tea we got a large glass of fresh milk and some watermelon. In each house everyone came to see us even though our questions were only for the women. Therefore in some houses, the husbands were there and probably affected the way the women answered our questions. In one house a woman brought her small child and asked us to look at it because he had an eye infection. We explained that we have no medical training and that she should go to the town (which is far away) to a real doctor. Another house thought we were UNICEF workers and wanted to know what we were going to bring to the village. Since this is just a preliminary assessment, it was really depressing to tell them that we ourselves wouldn’t be bringing anything but would pass on their concerns/problems/health conditions to the appropriate people. We kept being called Sister (what they call nurses), Doctor Sahiba (Doctor Madam), etc.
In the middle of the interviews we found out that there was a death in the village. A thirteen year old boy had fell off a tree while visiting a nearby village. At that point there was no one from the Rajput caste in the village since everyone went there. But people from other castes were still in the village so we switched to their houses.
Because the doctor and Pankaj had to be back for a meeting, we started back soon and arrived a bit tired and sleepy back to Dunni (our town). After showering both of us passed out due to exhaustion – not because we didn’t sleep enough but because the surveys were very draining, trying to understand everything that was being said.
And that was the first night we spent in the village, there will be many more to come…

Day 1

The next morning we got a brief tour of the village shops (like where to buy fruits/veg, medicines, etc.) We came back and cleaned with a vengeance, both our room and the bathroom – no more cobwebs/dusty floors for us!! It was fun in a weird way, sort of like claiming the area as our own. We are trying to show our self-sufficiency – I talked Rajesh into getting us milk for the next day so we don’t have to wait for them to come and make tea. He was surprised that we knew how to – how insulting!!
Ok, so I know this is long but just a really funny anecdote – the guys are all very nervous in our presence. One of them never stays more than a minute alone with us. To call us from our room they have to either call from outside (we have no bell) or from outside our room. They always timidly yell… “Neha!”, even Pankaj who speaks English…its always Neha!! … very awkwardly. Haha, yes we are looking forward to meeting a female here…
After spending the whole afternoon lounging we finally decided to venture out to buy some hand soap and some cold drinks (we got a HUGE bottle of Limca, a fizzy lemon drink, which turned hot in about five minutes). After coming back, once again there was a timid knock on the front door and a yelling on “Neha!”. I came down to find Pankaj asking where we wanted to eat dinner, since the aunty who made food wasn’t going to come that night. Other people had suggested trying a Dhaba, a truck drivers stopping place where everyone eats on a cot with a plank in the middle where the plates are kept. I had said no the day before due to questionable hygiene but finally gave in.
This time though P kept asking whether he should bring the food back, to which we said no because we hadn’t gone out all day. Although we didn’t know this at the time (and I wish people would just be clear about it) but apparently girls don’t frequent dhabas…AND we only had one bike on which we could go there (with three people). Either way, after about 20 min of small talk, when we realized we’re all the same age and had similar likes (music – he owned an iPOD, he wants to save the world, etc), we decided to head out. So keep in mind that it is uncomfortable riding on a motorcycle, but its even more with three people. It was about 10 min away on very windy, dark, small roads. It was a beautiful ride.
Once we got there though, there were lots more stares. We made ourselves comfortable on the cot and by we I mean Tanvi and I since P was not. We got food served by these two boys who sat next to us just to stare at us… I mean so uncomfortable.
I took one bite of the food to find it was mainly made of chilis. O wow, SO SPICY. Now usually I try to keep a straight face, especially when people have taken trouble to get us there. But half way through I hear: “you don’t like it?” and P looks sad. I feel bad but with my red nose, dripping and deep breaths, he knows I’m dying. My fav part of the evening was when we offered to pay, P was like no no the org will pay for all of it. But then he stopped and was awkwardly like, but sometimes let us please pay for you personally as well… hahahahahaha, so awkward.
Later we found out that he knew we were uncomfortable there since apparently there was alcohol being consumed…but once again, if he knew how weird the situation was going to be here…why didn’t he just tell us…
Hoping to report back with some of the work we’ll be doing…

THE HOUSE:

The following isn’t a description complaining or saying how much we hate the place. On the contrary, the last 2 days have taught me a lot. Overall though the state of the house is very poor and its only because T and I are very good spirited about everything that the whole process has been easy (relatively).
The first floor has two bedrooms, a bathroom and a hole in the wall kitchen. Our bedroom is on the second floor. Even though people have lived there for 4 years, they don’t have a fridge, tables or chairs. Not to mention our toilet is on the terrace (yes its “Indian style”). There are spiders everywhere. We seemed to have been enough for them to buy a fan that blows air over water so its slightly cooler (only 95 degrees at night). O wait, and we have a balcony with a huge wasps nest.

The first evening/night in Jaipur:

Nareshji (accountant) and Sameerji (lawyer) along with Hari Ram (driver) came to pick up at the airport. We forgot to tell them about our giant suitcases. So in Jaipur city the back seat held Tanvi, me, our laptops and purses and N with my suitcase on his lap. After we got out of the city N sat on the 1 passenger seat up front (mostly on S’s lap).
So S and N did not speak English well, much to my dismay because the 4 hour drive involved me practicing my Hindi a whole lot. S loved to talk and was very curious about America. He kept asking about life there and whether it was like in the movies. I told him no, America has poverty, unemployment, villages, farmers, etc. just on a different scale. He was still enamoured by the concept and kept saying that we were really lucky as well as had our hearts in the right place since we want to come here and help.
He turned the convo to marriage and how it is different there and here. It was awkward because I didn’t think it was appropriate to have the convo with him. I also noticed that everytime S said something a little too forward N would yell at him. In between convos S and N would whisper and we guessed it was about what to talk about next. Both of them were really eager to get us introduced to Rajasthani culture.
We stopped for cold drinks and food and we were the only girls around. Everyone stared like no other but regardless of the talkative guides we had, they were extremely chivalrous. We reached the guesthouse at 11 pm to find more guys waiting to greet us. All of them helped us carry our bags to the bedroom. Rajesh told us to lock the door and they all left for the night.

Week 1 in Pune, India

So its been five days since I've landed in Pune. I've been hanging out at my grandmothers for a week. I've been going to see different relatives on my dads side of the family every single day.My moms relatives all mostly stay where I am so I'm being constantly bombarded by one of them or another.

For those of you with families in other countries (I say this because its not as frequent in America), privacy is different here. Its hard to find any time for yourself. I will be typing an email and my cousin will come and say: What are you doing? and start reading. Its hard to get used to if you aren't from such a culture, but so far I've been able to change my behavior everytime I come here.

I found that India has changed quite a bit since four years ago. Even the "Old City" where I live, there are internet cafes and video game parlors. Everyone has a cell phone. Overall, there are people who have become modernized. So I've noticed a great contrast between people here.

Something I don't remember from the last trip is the staring. Everywhere I go people stare. I'm not just talking about guys on the street, but young old male female. And all this while I wore Indian clothes. I have yet to figure out why this is...

Heres a picture from my window. Regardless of the crowds, pollution... and the staring, I have to say its absolutely beautiful!!

First Post!

Hi everyone, welcome to the Kuber Report. For those of you wondering about the title of my blog, it is a bad pun on Colbert Report, one of the funniest shows on TV. I hope most of you know, but just to be sure: Kuber is pronounced Koo-bear, very close to Colbert.
Its the eve of my journey to India for my master's thesis and I'm currently racking my brain making sure I have everything I need.
My next entry will be from India and I promise to put up pictures and update as regularly as I can! Hope to have you all as regular readers.
And to end with one of my favorite videos on YouTube ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OBlgSz8sSM
Enjoy!