India has been as inspiring as I expected. It has also been
overwhelming and intimidating. I’m developing a lot of food for thought for my
return home. Good news: Today’s supposed to be the end of the world, and the
day is nearly over in India – the world is still around!
After leaving Mussoorie, we started the first round of
traveling in Delhi, staying with the sister of one of Margaret’s professors
from Xavier. Olina and her husband, Sri, were incredibly welcoming. Margaret
had stayed with them briefly during each of her two previous trips to India, so
she knew them pretty well. We hit some major sights in the city: the Red Fort
(we might have overdone it, spending about four hours in this one location),
Qutub Minar, and the Lotus Temple. We also had two rounds of Italian food: an
Indian version of Italian food at The Big Chill, where they serve the pasta
with a phenomenal spicy tomato sauce and pizza (supplemented with a
Mediterranean sampler platter) when we went out with Margaret’s Fulbright
friend Josh and a few of his other friends. In Delhi, we also endulged
ourselves a little bit in Western economic imperialism: Masala Lay’s chips and
McDonald’s. The Spicy Paneer wrap was quite good.
On Monday, we left Delhi for a conference in Alwar,
Rajasthan, with the National Council of Applied Economics Research (NCAER,
Margaret’s affiliate institution), on Decentralization and Rural Governance. The
conference took place at the Dadhikar Fort, a beautiful old for converted into
a hotel near Alwar. The research was related to the devolution of power to the
local governments (Panchayats), the reservation of seats in the Panchayats for
women, and the effective delivery of services. Though I have only a basic
introductory understanding of economics, I found the presentations and
discussions very interesting and illuminating. We also had the opportunity to
meet many pretty impressive people. The good news is that an economics
professor at Brown University also feels like he made some bad choices in his
undergrad days and is now very happy (and very successful) in his current
place.
At the end of the conference, they took us on a trip to the
Sariska Tiger Preserve, and we actually got to see one of the tigers. I’m
excited to say that I was able to catch a few pictures of it. The danger with
focusing on taking pictures, however, is that I didn’t get the time to just
watch the tiger. As we were driving around in the sunny, near-70-degree
weather, I turned to Margaret and said, “Close your eyes, feel the wind in your
face, and imagine how cold it is back home.”
I really know how to travel:
mid-to-high-60s when I landed in Alaska, and similarly beautiful weather most
of the time so far in India.
When we returned to the station where we met the
safari cars, I spent some time hanging out with this bull on the side of the
road. I just miss home and the farm so much!
Following the conference, we left the group in Alwar for our
own adventures: traipsing around Rajasthan through three cities: Jaipur,
Jodhpur, and Jaisalmer. Right now, we are in Jaipur. We hopped on the train
from Alwar to Jaipur without tickets after being told at the ticket counter to
buy our tickets on the train. We couldn’t find seats, so we ended up sitting on
a box in the galley area for the trip (which only lasted about an hour and a
half). When the conductor came through asking for our tickets, Margaret told
him that we had been told to buy our tickets on the train, and he tried to get
us to pay 1250 rupees each for tickets that should have cost about 330 rupees or
so. After arguing with him in Hindi for several minutes, Margaret negotiated a
cost of 400 rupees apiece. After taking the money, the conductor had a pleasant
conversation with us and wished us well. (For a price conversion, estimate that
50 rupees = 1 U.S. dollar.)
We arrived in Jaipur and spent some time sightseeing and
shopping. Rajasthan is known for its tie-dye and hand print clothing styles,
and we found a few awesome items. We then had our third Italian meal, again due
to the choice of a Fulbright friend of Margaret’s. But the pizza at this
restaurant was also really good. Thin crust pizza seems to be the crust of
choice in India. Tomorrow morning we leave for Jodhpur, arriving around 5:00
p.m. We will be joined by another Fulbright student for the last two stops on
our Rajasthan trip.
I will leave you with two quotes for now:
“If the Dalai Lama
can go to sleep and sleep every night for eight hours when Tibet is in the
hands of China, we should not be worrying.” –Margaret
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