Month: October 2015

Cramped, twisting alleyways paved in crooked, jagged stones and splattered with hazardous piles of cow dung; tiny, mysterious doorways painted vibrant blue and green shining from the alcoves of dingy stucco walls; a sweltering, heavy humidity settling low over the slow-flowing river, the sun glimmering off the silty waters like uncut diamonds; temple spires rising up in every direction, pink and white and gold towers stretching toward the hazy sky; a monkey scampering precariously across a telephone wire high above the street; cows dominating every empty space, from traffic lanes to doorways; a thousand tiny flames flickering in the velvety darkness of the evening aarti prayer as Brahmin priests mystify onlookers with the methodical circling of oil lamps on the edge of the river ghats.

The sizzle of rich dough being plopped into hot oil beckoning from just around the corner, followed by the clang of metal utensils scraping against massive iron frying pans; temple bells ringing and priests chanting low mantras in Sanskrit, hauntingly ever-present above the clamor of everyday city life; bike bells jingling on man-powered rickshaws, the thud of bike tires hitting ruts and rocks in the dusty street.

Rose and sandalwood incense wafting from every corner, seeping into my nostrils and clothes till my head is light and dizzy with the thick scent; the mildly acidic tang of fresh cow dung warmed by the sun, rising above the perpetual earthy scent of its dried out predecessors; thick diesel fuel cutting through the heavy, salty scent of the river, not unlike the heady smell of the ocean.

The semi-soft give of boiled egg yolk mingling with tender yet chewy paneer and buttery, sweet red masala; syrupy jalebi so fresh that upon biting into the crispy, saffron-colored spiral of dough, my tongue is overwhelmed by a burst of scalding rose and cardamom honey; bitter, earthy chai pouring from steel pots in a creamy tan stream, like a tiny Ganges River flowing into my rough little terracotta cup; flaky, kachori dough crumbling on my tongue, making way for its majorly spicy, mildly sweet potato and chickpea filling that must be flavored with the wares of a hundred different spice stalls.

This is Varanasi, a city so often overlooked by foreign travelers in India, and one which even I, in my extensive research of India's most fascinating places, had essentially forgotten about until CIEE informed us that our program would be spending a weekend there. Benaras, as the city is known by locals, is one of the holiest places in India because of its legendary origins (the chosen home of two important Hindu deities, Shiva and Parvati) and its prime location on the revered and worshiped Ganges River (also known as Mother Ganga, when referred to in her goddess form).

But the most mystical thing about Varanasi isn't its religious significance, its holy river, or its mythical origins. For me, Varanasi mystified me by transporting me back to my childhood dreams. Without even realizing it, I had stumbled into the India I had been conjuring up in my mind for over a decade: an India frozen in time, an India of secret passageways and dark alleys, of brightly colored walls dressed in creeping vines, of Hindu holy men and Muslim mosques, of dilapidated palaces sinking gracefully, solemnly, into a river so full of life that it could be a city of its own. Though I only spent three days in Benaras, I know the city's visages will be etched into my mind for as long as I live. I hope to return one day, but should I not be so fortunate, I know that all I have to do is close my eyes and let my sensory memories of Varanasi wash over me, let Mother Ganga flow through my veins.

By meghanclorinda

Making local friends here has been a little more difficult than I originally bargained for, exacerbated both by the inherent shyness of Indian college students, and by my somewhat isolated position living in a homestay that isn't within walking distance of campus, especially not at night. While some of my fellow study abroad students have become great friends of mine, the past month I've still felt rather lonely. Coming from GW, where I am extremely involved in numerous student organizations and where the campus community is a huge part of my everyday life, the transition to a campus with very few active organizations and more than a few barriers to meeting local students in a way that fostered friendship was taking its toll on me.

However, my luck turned around completely when my Indian Art History course finally started for the semester. An art history major myself, I was suddenly thrust into the School of Fine Arts, surrounded by other art historians and artists, most of whom happened to have just moved to Hyderabad from cities over a thousand kilometers away. Like me, they were creative, shy, nervous, a little disoriented, and eager to find a home and a community in their new environment. Rather than gawking at me -- the strange, possibly dangerous, foreign creature -- wide-eyed from a safe distance across the room like nearly all of my other classmates had, these students approached me timidly but willingly, sitting next to me and introducing themselves in uncertain English, or waving at me and sending shy but warm smiles from a few rows down.

One of them, a perfect vision of an art student with his retro aviator eyeglasses, tiny gold earring in one ear, mismatched plaid-and-stripes outfit, and a thick mop of wavy black hair, even invited me to audit a Philosophy of Art class with him and his friend. I regrettably had to decline as I was headed for a class in the foreign students' building, and I wouldn't even get his name till much later, but his quirky appearance, casual tone, and forwardness was incredibly refreshing on a campus teeming with cautious, closed-off faces. I grinned when saying goodbye, knowing that given time, we would be friends.

My excitement at finding my place among the art students, however, was a little too strong. I soon learned that despite their more open, friendly attitude, they were all still Indians living in Indian society,governed by Indian social norms -- my eagerness to smile, introduce myself, follow them around their art studios could be read in a completely different way than my American mind intended. But by the time I realized this, it was already too late. While studying in the lobby of the Social Sciences building one morning, a classmate I didn't know too well from my anthropology class asked me to watch his laptop while he went to the restroom. Upon returning he asked my name and said a sentence or two about class, eventually asking if he could friend me on Facebook. My neutral response of "Sure" led to a stream of insistent messages over the next two weeks asking what I was up to, how and where I was, whether or not I had been around the city yet. Apparently, accepting a friend request has stronger implications here -- much stronger.

Additionally, I had already chatted on Facebook with two of the boys in my art history class -- nothing but innocent talk of hometowns and college majors, but in the Indian social context, a strong indicator of flirtation. Even worse, I had high-fived and then clasped hands with my hipster-glasses-clad guy (we'll call him Kartik) twice upon bidding him goodbye at the end of class, reading the gesture as casual and reminiscent of the American "bro handshake."

But I couldn't have been more wrong. When I told my host brother Alok one night about the incredible friends I was making and how unafraid of me they seemed, he flew into an overprotective tizzy. "He's making a pass at you!" he exclaimed after hearing that Kartik had actually come up and tapped me on the shoulder to say hi at the student canteen one afternoon. "No way!" I laughed, shaking my head at Alok as though he were being absolutely ridiculous. "These kids aren't stuffy conformists. They're artsy and liberal. He was just being friendly." I refused to believe that my hip, fearless art friends were as traditional as any other student on campus. After all, the guys and girls teased each other like siblings, they had bonfire parties behind the fine arts building till three in the morning, and they blasted Pink Floyd and Kanye from their iPods while they worked in the studio. I could let my guard down around them, even the guys.

I came to learn, however, that Alok had been right all along. One afternoon, after hanging in the print studio with Kartik and the others for a bit, he walked me outside to my cycle and told me he'd take me to "Mushroom Rock," a huge rock formation on the edge of campus with views of the university's sprawling wilderness, the next day. I gave him an uncertain response, knowing for sure that this was a date -- Indian boys don't just ask girls they aren't related to or extremely good friends with to hang out one-on-one unless they have a very specific, not platonic, intention. I headed home, knowing that Alok was going to kill me when I told him what had come to pass, and deciding that I was seriously going to have to work on my social skills in the Indian context if I wanted to survive the next three months without inadvertently leading on half of my male classmates.

By meghanclorinda

Growing up outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where the weather often switches from one season to the next in the blink of an eye, I spent many childhood Septembers praying for what my area calls an "Indian Summer" -- an unusual and welcome extension of August warmth well into the time when the Autumn chill should have been blowing in on an evening wind. In grade school Indian Summers meant more warm nights spent playing outside before sunset, more chances to catch fireflies on my fingertips and marvel at their glow; in college, it meant more time to wear short flowy dresses and walk along the Georgetown waterfront at sunset with my best friends, Haagen Daaz ice cream cones in hand. Every September I would will Mother Nature to slow down a bit, to get a little lazy and let the summer heat stick around for one more week, and then another, and another.

It's no longer summer here in India, but you'd never know it. Supposedly we're smack dab in the middle of the rainy season, yet I can count on two hands the number of actual storms I've seen occur in the past two and a half months. For the past two weeks, the temperature has been above 90 degrees Fahrenheit almost every day, and that's not even factoring in the sweltering humidity and sunlight. Everyday in class with friends or over dinner with my homestay family there's hopeful talk that the next day will be the long awaited one when the rains bring cool relief, or when the weather finally transitions (almost three months late) and the temperature drops to 80 degrees and never pops back up again. My Indian friends inform me that at this time last year they were wearing jackets to class in the morning -- instead I find myself breaking into a sweat just minutes after I leave the house at 8:30 AM.

My lifelong love of "Indian Summer" has vanished and made way for a desperate and heartwrenching longing for Autumn, ushering in along with it the first real wave of homesickness I've felt since beginning my study abroad experience. Sure, I've felt twinges of homesickness here or there since I left DC in July -- missing my parents terribly the first few weeks, my roommates and close friends when the quiet solitude of my room became too much. But I could have never prepared for the overwhelming sadness I would feel from something as simple and as small as the absence of a season. This week as I saw friends' Instagram and Facebook posts commemorating the Autumnal Equinox, I was overcome by a whirlwind of emotions and the realization that it had been so long since I had felt any sort of cool weather that I had practically lost sense of time, forgetting not only that it was late September but that my favorite season, Fall, even existed. Forgoing homework and socialization I became obsessive, spending an hour or two looking through old photos of DC foliage, of Halloween parties and pumpkin flavored treats I had baked, looking up Autumn-themed recipes on Pinterest that I'd never find the ingredients for here.

Before I knew it, my longing for Fall had transformed into full-blown homesickness. Abandoning my India photo album on Facebook, I began uploading dozens of pictures left over from my Sophomore year at GW. In the auto rickshaw ride to school I blasted party playlists from last spring through my headphones; I watched India whizz past to the tunes of "Flawless" and "Anaconda," songs I hadn't even liked when they were popular but which now intoxicated me simply because they were so apart from my life here. I shoved all of my kurtas and salwars to the back of my wardrobe and began rotating through the two or three western outfits I had with me, suddenly the only things I could bear to put on in the morning.

But nothing I did seemed to make me feel any less restless. I gradually came to realize that homesickness can take different forms for different people. For me, homesickness isn't the great, deep ache for certain people or even a certain place, but rather, it was a peculiar melancholy for the little things that had mostly gone unnoticed in my old life, but which the absence of here in India felt like a gaping hole.

Little things like the feeling of thick woolen socks hugging my feet to shut out an Autumn chill; the lazy exhaustion of a cold rainy day that prompts me to sneak back to my dorm room between classes and take a nap, and later waking up to the sound of raindrops pattering on old bricks, the damp chill seeping in through my open window; peeling whitewashed wood on doorframes and windowsills and bed posts; the feel of my hand cramping around a wooden spoon handle as I mixed a thick cookie dough; the taste of a warm pumpkin spice latte seeping into my tongue, spicy and sickeningly sweet and dark all at the same time; the strap of an overweight grocery bag cutting painfully into my palm as I trek back to my room after a successful grocery shopping trip, weighed down by fresh produce and sweet treats; feeling my nose and fingertips warm back to life after coming back inside from a frigid Autumn night; breaking into a cold sweat on a brisk, windy morning as I run along the foliage-bordered canal in Georgetown, the calls of the GW and Georgetown rowing teams blowing in off the Potomac.

Little pieces of home, tiny moments, feelings, tastes, and smells that can't be captured or recreated in India, or anywhere for that matter. As much as I miss them though, I wouldn't give up this opportunity for even a day to have them back in my life. Because one of the unexpected beauties of studying abroad is the overwhelming love it makes you feel for what you left behind, and the knowledge that when the day comes to leave the incredible life you've created here, there will be a thousand lovely little beautiful things waiting for you when you step off the plane.

By meghanclorinda

If there's one stunning similarity that I've found between the United States and India during my time here thus far, it's an overwhelming culture of commercialism in both countries. However, as with any other infiltration of Western influence, commericalism has very much taken on a new form here through "Indianization." Each of Hyderabad's streets is like a miniature Times Square, complete with Bollywood actress endorsements for everything from kitchen tiles to skin creams, advertisements painted as murals directly on the side of buildings, posters plastered onto every form of public transportation imaginable, and an array of neon signs and string lights that burst into color from the moment dusk begins to fall. Indians have taken the concept of the shopping mall to a new level -- literally. In Hyderabad city alone there are about six shopping malls, most of which are between three and five stories. Practically tiny, self-contained neighborhoods in themselves, they've got everything from parking garages to kids'playgrounds to rooftop nightclubs.

The act of shopping itself is also more intense here. For one, there's a lot more human interaction. India's overpopulation issue, especially evident in an urban environment like that of Hyderabad, lends itself to both more shoppers, and more employees. Walk into a clothing store and you're likely to be surrounded on all sides by your fellow customers and an army of attendants eager to offer help you likely don't need, whether it's simply pulling a hanger off a rack or refolding a pair of pants. There's a massive, ever present labor force here, with a demand for jobs that creates positions in the service industry which seem highly unnecessary, and which can be a little stifling to a Westerner.

The mothership of all shopping experiences, however, is found when one is on the market for some Indian formal wear. I've already accumulated nearly a full wardrobe of casual Indian salwar khameez to wear on campus, but as a self-described shopaholic and slave to fashion, I knew I couldn't leave India without purchasing at least one glittery, shimmering formal outfit to take home with me. Luckily, two of my friends were also on the lookout for some sequins and silk, so we set out together on a quest for the perfect dresses.

I was vaguely familiar with the process of buying Desi formal wear from my Indian friends at GW -- or so I thought. There is a rich and skilled tradition of needlework and tailoring in India, and because of the labor surplus it's all at a relatively low cost. Because of this, it's extremely commonplace to have part or all of an outfit custom fit by a seamstress and made just for you. I had envisioned that my outing to buy a ghagra (a style of Indian formal wear that includes a floor length flared skirt, a cropped blouse, and a long scarf called a dupatta) would look something like this: traveling to some small, cramped tailor's shop, gazing at rows and rows of fabric choices stacked from floor to ceiling, explaining my vision for my ghagra, giving my measurements, and getting out. Easy, convenient, and customizable.

However, that wasn't quite the case. Instead, one Sunday afternoon, weighed down by a heavy midday meal of dosa and sambar, I found myself squeezed into the backseat of the family car with my friend Sara and my two homestay aunties. Luckily my aunties are shopping experts in their own right, so Sara and I didn't have to navigate the process completely on our own. We were relieved to have experienced guides to lead the way. But it wasn't until we actually arrived at the Chennai Shopping Mall that we realized just how completely lost we would have been without them.

Chennai Shopping Mall isn't a mall in the American sense -- rather, it's a massive, five story formal wear shop with its own underground parking garage, floor to ceiling glass windows, and a massive garland of what must have been 200 or so fresh flowers strung around its doorway. Auntie led us inside with the poise and concentration of a military leader. As Sara and I shuffled along nervously behind her tiny frame, which seemed to glide over the shiny lacquered floors underneath all those silky sari folds, Auntie strutted straight up to the nearest worker, rattled off what we were interested in buying, and waved her hand for us to follow her into a tiny glass elevator. The four of us crammed in, soft Bollywood elevator music jangling overhead; I felt like Charlie in Willy Wonka's Chocolate factory as I watched the different levels of the store glide past through the glass doors, each with its own array of colors and textures that caught the eye.

The elevator jerked to a halt and the glass doors slid open, depositing us in a room with white marble tiles and mahogany shelving units lining the walls from floor to ceiling, with layer upon layer of decadent silks and velvets in every hue imaginable stacked upon each other. Within seconds an attendant burst forth from behind a rack of elaborate gowns and ushered us towards a glittering white countertop and some plush looking chairs. I was incredibly amazed, and also incredibly confused. Why were we sitting? Where were the tailors with their sketchpads waiting to transform our dreams into reality? What about the bolts of satin and silk lined up to be made into saris and skirts?

"Sit!" Auntie patted the seats next to her and Sara and I nervously plopped down. Three salesmen instantly hovered over us, looking at us expectantly with nothing to say but "Yes, madam?" Auntie explained our desired fashions: for Sara, an anarkali (a below the knee, flared dress with a pair of matching satin leggings), and for me, a ghagra choli. The salesmen whipped around and started snatching plastic bags filled with brightly colored folded fabrics off the shelves. They flung the plastic blags aside and snapped the dresses and skirts out in front of us like vibrant, shiny whips; we found ourselves lurching backwards a few times to avoid being hit in the face by various kinds of baubles and sequins.

Fastforward three hours later, by which point the two of us had been shown dozens of options, each more elaborate and breathtaking than the next. Naturally, there were a few strange combinations that reminded us of the cultural differences in taste between our home and India, like the lace and tulle layered anarkali in hues of pink and chocolate brown that reminded us of an old feather duster, or the blindingly bright ghagras that contained purple, magenta, silver, green, canary yellow, and sapphire satin all at once. Auntie got frustrated trying to emphasize for the thousandth time that there was no way they'd ever get me into a bubblegum pink and royal blue ghagra (apparently the it-girl color combination this year in India), and that Sara was looking for pastels, not neons (apparently not a distinction that is often made here). Most difficult of all for us rookie shoppers, however, was the act of refusal. Sitting there with gown after gown being flung in front of me, the expectant gaze of the salesmen burning into my skull, I legitimately felt a sense of anxiety and dread. Any time I saw them reaching for a folded set in a color I knew I had no interest in, I tensed up, waving my arms about wildly so that they wouldn't disrupt the elaborate folding that had been done just to get the thing into its plastic bag. Of course, it was to know avail. By the end of the process a stack of velvet and satin about eight inches thick lay on the counter in front of me, and I was mentally exhausted.

But that's all part of the experience. By unnecessarily ruining the neat folding of a dress, a new job is created for someone else in the store who does nothing but restore the clothing to its neat and tidy state with polished speed. With every dress that I had to vehemently shake my head at in distaste, a salesmen gave an order to someone whose job consisted only of running to the next shelf to pull another option out for view. I often feel uncomfortable in India as I am waited on hand and foot, followed by shop attendants, have my food spooned onto my plate for me, and am even offered complementary tea or coffee while I sit and refuse gown after gaudy gown. But it's less about treating the more privileged classes like royalty and more about a system that somehow enables India to function despite its overpopulation issue. So while I may feel uncomfortable and I may want to wave off the girl taking clothes off the hangers for me at the mall, or the boy who unfolds my napkin and drapes it over my lap, if I did so I'd be robbing them of their sense of purpose and pride, and hindering the well-oiled machine that the Indian economy has become.

Despite all the service and constant attention, however, shopping for Indian formal wear is not for the faint of heart. It's a high stress situation, and should only be undertaken by foreigners with a well-trained and highly experienced Indian auntie to navigate bargaining and the newest trends for them. If you can make it through the chaos, though, the end results are absolutely breathtaking, and you'll always have a piece of India to wear close to your heart.

By meghanclorinda

When I told people I planned on studying abroad in India, their general response was utter horror and disbelief. They would instantaneously rattle off a few key questions: Aren't you afraid? Are you sure you want to go? And of course, the ever popular, Why would you want to go to INDIA???? As though India were some giant black hole on the map just waiting to swallow innocent American college girls whole.

I wouldn't even be able to utter a defensive, and justified, response -- Yeah, I'm pretty darn positive I want to go, thanks -- before their eyes widened in terror and they let out a little gasp, unleashing a firestorm of warnings about India. It doesn't matter that most of them had never actually been to Asia, let alone India, or that most of them probably didn't even know someone from India. The minute I let the world know that I'd set my sights on the much-speculated-about, but seldom-understood, mythical land of malaria, Delhi Belly diarrhea, and shady auto drivers, every misinformed inhabitant of the Western Hemisphere seemed to turn into the premiere expert on my personal safety.

I've heard it all: Don't EVER drink the tap water, and use bottled water to brush your teeth for at least the first month, or else you'll become horribly ill and you'll have to go home. Carry half your money on a belt strapped under your clothes at all times, even on campus. Everyone's trying to steal from you. Keep your backpack locked wherever you go. Carry your passport at all times. No, don't carry your passport; lock it in a safe in your room and carry copies of it everywhere. Only travel 1st or 2nd class on trains -- don't mix with the average people, they'll rob you in your sleep. I once knew a girl who knew a guy who died from eating meat from a street stall in Bangladesh, so don't touch street food for the whole five months. Don't wear sleeveless tops, don't go out at night, don't smile, don't make eye contact.

What's next, I should only breathe when I'm in the privacy of my own room? After months of listening to every know-it-all, non-Indian person from Philadelphia to DC lecture me on the perils of my impending study abroad nightmare, it's no wonder that in the weeks leading up to my departure for India I found myself questioning my decision to go. I was practically in a panic on the plane, spending most of my twenty-four hours of travel attempting (and mostly failing) to fight back tears and an overwhelming sense of dread.

Upon arriving things improved, thanks mainly to the surprisingly beautiful, newly constructed Hyderabad international airport and the warmth and understanding of my homestay family. However, the panic was still looming, lying low and waiting to pounce. Orientation ushered in day after day of long presentations on safety, causing all of my old fears to resurface. By the end of the ten day orientation program, my fellow students and I were so petrified we barely wanted to walk outside, convinced that nothing but danger awaited us there. It was better to sit home on the couch with a cup of chai for the next five months than to be swallowed alive by the Hyderabadi urban jungle, right?

And yet, somehow I find myself posting this blog exactly one month from the day that I landed in Hyderabad, India with a suitcase full of toilet paper and medications and a mind full of irrational fears. Even since I started feeling comfortable here in India, there has been a part of me that really didn't believe I'd make it this far. Either one of those terrifying scenarios would come true, or I'd just be so overwhelmed by culture shock and the sheer sensory bombardment of India that I'd have a breakdown and go home within the first week or two.

So how did I manage? Perseverance, passion for this country, street smarts, and a certain level of adaptability were all essential. But the real key to surviving my first month in India was...India itself. That's right, America: not only is India survivable, but it is also friendly, modern, beautiful, open, fascinating, and transformative.

That's not to say that my first month here hasn't been challenging. My feelings about India changed every twenty-four hours for the first two weeks, as my emotions constantly swung back and forth between complete elation and utter dismay; I found myself either giggling and snapping photos of everything I laid my eyes on, or lying in bed for hours crying myself to sleep. The heat has at times been unbearable, ushering in its own set of challenges, from swarms of mosquitoes to melting eye makeup to accepting the fact that I smell sweaty about 75 percent of the time. I breathe in a strong dose of diesel fumes, rotting garbage, water buffalo dung, and urine to and from school everyday. I have been gawked at constantly from the minute I stepped off the plane, particularly by men who seem interested in a little more than the fact that I'm a foreigner, especially when they insist on taking pictures of me as I just try going about my daily life. And don't even get me started on registering for classes in the Indian university system; imagine the most stressful academic situation you've ever encountered, multiply it by about 500, and then maybe you'll have a rough idea of the sort of frustration foreign students deal with here when trying to start the semester.

Despite all this, however, I made it through the first month with an overwhelmingly positive view of this country. For every creepy guy checking me out on the bus, there's a fatherly bus attendant who starts up a conversation with me about my plans for India and shields me from the all-male gaze. For every auto rickshaw driver who's tried to scam me out of fifty rupees, there's been a kind driver who jumped out of his vehicle and stopped four lanes of traffic to help my friends and I cross a busy highway. For every pile of cow poop I've been unable to avoid riding my bike through, there have been wonder-inducing moments where I've walked down the street alongside herds of water buffalo, bleating goats, and, one time, even a pair of camels.

For every challenge, there have been infinite rewards. In just thirty days, I have met more good samaritans and friendly strangers than I have in Washington, DC in the past two years. I've seen more natural and man-made beauty than I ever could have imagined from an overpopulated, urban landscape. I've eaten world class meals just sitting at my homestay family's dining room table, and I've embarked on big adventures just getting to class in the morning.

I survived one month in India, and I have four more months to go. I know they won't be easy, but I don't want them to be. I'm ready to experience India as she is meant to be experienced: no preconceived notions, no judgments, and absolutely no advice from misinformed foreigners. India is not a black hole; she's a galaxy, alive and sparkling with both dark matter and light. There's no gravity in space, so it's time to let go, and get carried away.