The Avocado Advocate

Off the soapbox, it's time to compromise

2011-04-11T21:37:00.005+05:30

Monument of Gandhi's Salt March, Pondicherry

Lately I've been pondering the question of collaboration. I've been thinking about how it may be possible to reach compromises with people who think and believe very differently. The question arises in many spheres, private and public, professional and political.

My last post was written in a moment of great passion, frustration, anger and disappointment about the lack of compromise, the lack of collaboration between the Republicans and the Democrats of the Wisconsin State Assembly. I am still frustrated with politics. But the local, state, and national politics obviously have been and continue to be constantly fraught with this challenge.

What can be done when people feel very differently, and simultaneously feel very strongly about an issue? How can satisfactory agreement or compromise be reached? More recently, I've been pondering this question not with the question of state or national politics, but with collaborations with colleagues in my professional life.

In collaboration with colleagues towards common goals, such as the development of IAWAWSA as an organization, I find myself sometimes in fairly stark disagreements about how things should be done. I am not surprised that we have differences of opinion, as we are bound to think and feel differently. Sometimes these differences are obviously due to cultural differences, myself as an American, and some of my collaborators who are Indian. Sometimes the differences are simply linguistic and semantic, differences in the way in which we interpret words. But language and culture can't be used as scapegoats for all the differences of opinion and thought. Some of the disagreements are with my fellow American collaborators.

In case you couldn't tell from having read my blog in the past, I'm a person with strong convictions about my beliefs and values. I don't think I'm special or unique in this way. Rather it poses some serious challenges. In particular, though I believe in the importance of compromise, I'm not always very good at it. It's something I struggle with, something that I consciously work to improve in my life.

Because I feel quite strongly about most things, I find it difficult to pick my battles, so to speak. When it comes time to negotiate a compromise, I know that I should prioritize the aspects of the issue that are most important to me, and be willing to let go of the things that I feel are less important. But this principle is harder to apply in practice than it sounds.

When the differences are obviously cultural, it's both easier and harder. On the one hand, it's easier to accept that perhaps I should respect those perspectives with which I disagree. On the other hand, it sometimes means we are so far apart in not just what we think, but how we arrive at those conclusions, it makes it more difficult to find the point of compromise in the middle.

As my readers can tell, I'm writing in a lot of vague generalities, rather than specifics. I don't want to offend anyone, and I don't intend this as a complaint. We are bound to disagree, and it's my responsibility, and everyone's responsibility to find a way to reach a compromise. I work on it every day. But the bigger the goal, the harder it is, and working on these kinds of projects has given me a newfound respect for anyone whose job consists of this sort of compromise every day. As an academic, and being in a field which is not always collaborative, or which often creates hierarchies to decision-making, instead of equal collaborations, I have not needed to confront the challenge of negotiation and compromise most of the time. Maybe what I really need is practice.

I suppose these thoughts tend towards stating the obvious, but I find it useful to think "out loud" about such things. I know that there is no "answer" to these questions. Rather, I am, and I hope we all are, just doing the best we can to get along.

The Honesty Society (provisions store), Pondicherry

At a loss for what to say

2011-02-25T13:25:00.007+05:30

Dear Readers,

Whoever you might be out there, whether you know me personally or not, I hope you can understand my taking this moment to stand up on a soapbox, and however incoherently (it's 2am) state my objections, my disappointment, my sadness about the state of democracy and government in my state, and in my country.

I am an American. At times that has been a cause for shame. I've never been much of a patriot, but when we elected Barack Obama, our first African American President, I was proud. For the first time in a long time, I was proud to be an American.

When the legitimacy of democracy, it's fairness, it's possible corruption is questioned in countries other than the US, I might have shook my head in sadness, but if I'm honest with myself, and with you, I never really questioned those reports. I thought to myself, "That's just the way it is." I didn't ever think it would ever come to the same sad status quo in Wisconsin, USA.

We have had our moments of shame. One that stands out is in the wake of G.W. Bush's re-election, and the alleged fraud of voting machines. Today was another one of those moments.

I just watched the Speaker Pro Tem of the Wisconsin State Assembly call a vote, without a motion to end the debate, without due process, call a vote, which was mostly shouted, and not even all those present in the chamber got a chance to register their vote. It was approximately 1:10am, and things had already become heated between the two sides.

Perhaps there was no doubt in anyones mind that the bill would pass. Even with a few dissenting republicans, which there were, it was going to pass anyway. But the vote called in the state assembly, following after the comments of one of the Democrats, with just seconds to respond, and both sides shouting, there was a cacaphony of yeas and nays, and then the roll was closed. Only 68 out of 99 voted. As soon as the words were out of their mouths the Republicans ran out of the room, as the Democrats shouted, "SHAME! SHAME! SHAME!".

The vote went 51 to 17, and the yeas had it. Of the 17 that voted against, four were Republicans. Twenty-five Democrats were not able to register their vote before the vote was closed. Republicans Kaufert, Nerison, Spanbauer, and Tranel should be thanked for not voting with the party line. Even that gives me some small faith in humanity.

On the other hand, the actions of the Republican speaker, who called the vote without warning, without formal roll call, without a motion to end the debate, disgust me. I'm at a loss for what to say.

I wish I could say I've never been so disappointed, but it's not true. I was more disappointed when this country somehow managed to re-elect G.W. Bush, for a second go-round. I wanted to move to Canada.

But this is closer to home. With Bush, it was people someplace else, somewhere hundreds of miles away. This is HERE, in my home, and it's personal. For me it's served a dual purpose. It's highlighted the depth and width of the huge chasm of differences between my beliefs and convictions, and people on the other side. It's also had the amazing power to create unity, and solidarity, with people I didn't know before, and amongst the friends I already had, within my department in the university.

It's not about self-interest, or personal gain. It's about doing what is right, and fighting against the corporations and institutions and lawmakers that want to take from poor and give to the rich, that want to disenfranchise us, that want to take away our voice.

We are now unified under a common cause, and the more ridiculous and un-democratic the behavior of those in power, the more angry, but also more unified we're bound to get.

Adjust-panni, ippo enna?

2011-02-06T01:53:00.009+05:30

After visiting a teeny village in rural Andhra Pradesh,

the school children were waving goodbye as I left (Sep 2010).

So I've adjusted. Now what?

I'm back in the swing of normal daily life in America, my calorie intake is up, with chocolate, cheese, and american junk food, and I've stopped seeing things around me as especially strange or foreign. Everything is normal. Almost. Mostly.

There are times now, in the normal-est circumstances, when I feel completely out of place. Only, it seems, in the moments of utter and absolute normalcy, when everyone else around me is so deeply and completely caught up in that unaware normalness, then I feel somehow transported to another world.

One night not too long ago I was riding the bus home late from the university, observing the other passengers. I couldn't help but see the way in which they organize themselves in the space of the bus so differently from the alternative reality of Indian buses. I experienced a strange double vision of an ordinary, late night, Indian bus, filled with passengers, superimposed on this bus of Americans. Though they are going about the same essential activity, riding a bus to go home, or to visit someone, or go to work, I can't help but marvel at the difference in the ways in which they, those physically present Americans, and imagined Indians, accomplish that task.

No one else around me was aware of the ghostly Indian bus, taking the same route, with ethereal other-worldly passengers, saris and shawls wrapped over heads, bending forwards in their seats, instead of leaning back, babies sleeping on laps, instead of in strollers, young children stretched across a row of three or four people. The small zippered duffle bags containing clothing and other essentials for entire families, jostling quietly on the floor. Women sitting only with other women, and men with men, unless they happen to be husband and wife, and even then, still sometimes separated. The chilly night wind blows through the Indian bus, even if chilly means its 70 degrees fahrenheit, everyone feels cold. It is only the body heat of the number of people packed closely together, 3 or 4 or 5 to a bench seat, that keeps the bus warm.

On the American bus, men in women, girls and boys sit together, and perhaps because there are so many fewer people, they all seem to spread out, legs spread wide, slumped down and leaning back, there are several people dozing or sleeping, or listening to music on headphones. Backpacks and purses and bags spread out over the adjacent seats, creating the buffer of ever-so-important personal space. Hot air blasts out of vents, and some people are talking loudly, trying to talk over the sound of the roaring heat.

I don't know why I sometimes experience double vision. Perhaps it's a trick of my tired, near-dreaming state, when I imagine what it would be like if I were still in India now. Sometimes I feel like I live simultaneously in a double-world.

India from the air, a flight between Chennai and Delhi, 2010.

Now that I'm home, and adjusted, more or less. I find myself missing India more and more. Certainly I don't miss everything. But I sometimes dream about the food, the dosas, idlis and chutneys of Thevar's Cafe near my old apartment. I miss how friendly everyone was, in a way that sometimes seemed more genuine than even the classic midwestern friendliness. Here the woman checking out my groceries at the store might smile, or make polite small talk, but she doesn't know me at all. Though there were things I hated about the small town life of Thanjavur, I miss the shopkeepers of the shop across the street from my house, who knew me, and always greeted me with genuine care. I miss the potter and his family who I used to visit, just to watch them work. I miss lots of things, maybe too many to name each person, place or thing.

It occurred to me once again though, (I've come full circle), I miss the challenge of daily life. I miss the lack of convenience, the effort it took to accomplish so many ordinary daily tasks, and I miss the joy and sense of great satisfaction at having succeeded in such basic things.

America, as I have felt for a long time now, is too easy. Everything is too convenient. I manage to make it somewhat less convenient through my own choices - for instance, currently not owning a car. Sometimes it's hard to put a finger on exactly what it is, or why too much convenience bothers me. I suspect it's that I'm not getting the same sense of accomplishment and satisfaction out the basic tasks of daily life.

So, I've adjusted. Now what? இப்பொழுது என்ன? I suppose I will go on as I have before, always missing one or more of the places that I have called home. Happy to be where I am, happy to be alive, but with twinges of longing for my alternative realities.

Saying goodbye to my friend Ramu, in Kadebakele village last March (2010).

As an aside, I wanted to post a link to this wonderful column reflecting on India, "Modern India's Dance of Creation and Destruction", by Akash Kapur for the International Herald Tribune (and NY Times). It has not much to do with the above post, except in that it also points to the constancy of change, the fact that since I can't live in two places at once, the next time I go back to India, it will no longer be the same place it was when I left. There is a kind of bitter-sweetness in that, one that I savor and let linger in my heart.

Adjust-panne

2010-11-20T11:15:00.002+05:30

It's that time again. I'm back in the U.S. and even though everyone assumes that it should be easy to come home, it's not. "Adjust-panne" is the Tamilization of the English verb "to adjust". And that's what I'm doing now, and will be for a while, I think.

It's not easy to radically shift in time zones, climates, cultures, people, foods and everything. Even though this is my "native" culture.

For one thing, things have changed in America since I left. When I left for India last November, there was no "Tea Party," at least not a recent one. Russ Feingold was my Senator, and people as far as I knew, expected he still would be. Some of my friends who were single, are now married. Some who weren't even pregnant when I left now have infants. Friends have moved states, whole lives have been transformed by the loss of jobs, and new jobs, etc.

There is an inclination, when you leave a place, even for a year, to expect it to be the same when you get back. But that is never the case. Time does not stand still for the people you leave behind.

I know that after a year spent in India doing research for my PhD, I should feel a sense of accomplishment. I should feel like I've really done something. Maybe it just hasn't hit me yet. Right now I feel like I'm standing still, and the trees, everything in the world around me is flying by at a million miles an hour. It's a strange sort of relativity.

In my imagination the world in America stood still while I was gone, and now that I've come back to it, all the changes that actually took place over the course of that year seem to be taking place at light speed.

I have changed too, though that's harder for me to recognize. I fell in love again for the first time since I was 18. I fell hard and fast, and stupidly, gleefully floated on a cloud of oxytocin-induced bliss. I felt I had never been so happy. It was long-distance love, and inevitably the oxytocin wore off and I fell again, this time into anguish, tears and insomnia. Then I started to pick up the pieces of my heart. I think I got all of them. I might have left one in India.

I turned 30. I started brushing my teeth more regularly. I became more or less vegetarian, with the exception of eggs, and some fish. I remembered how much I love origami. I decided I want to get a dog, even though everyone tells me how hard it will be, how unstable my life is, and how I have no concept of the responsibilities involved.

I worked on accepting the fact that my life is unstable and unpredictable, that I don't have a true home, and I may not have one for a very long time. I spent a lot of this past year daydreaming about stability, about how nice it would be to lead a predictable life, with a home, with a dog, with god-willing someday, a family. I spent a long time feeling home-sick for a home I do not have. Then I spent the rest of my time disparaging that boring life, which I do not lead, and trying to convince myself that I really do love the adventure and unpredictability.

I spent a lot of time pondering a lot of things, and even though I can't put a finger to each and everything thing, I know I've changed, I've grown. And so has everyone else.

Nothing is the same. Not really. Not even the things that seem to be the same. They've changed, because everything around them has changed, and that changes everything. Some people might not have changed, but I have changed, and therefore my perception of and relationship to them.

I come back to find (or be reminded) that there are many elements of American culture I dislike. I am overwhelmed by the consumer culture. I can't believe how much time and money people spend buying things they don't need, and might not even want. I can't believe the abundance of bad and greasy fast food. I can't believe the limits of obesity that can stretch the human body to a larger circumference around the middle than a persons height.

There are things I love to come home to. Recycling. Peace and quiet. Natural spaces (nearly) empty of other people. People driving in a more-or-less orderly manner. Avocados. Sushi. Black bean burritos with lots of guacamole. Raspberries.

There are also things I already miss. I miss the cows, goats, dogs, cats, monkeys and (occasional) elephants that wandered the streets. I miss idlis and tengai chutney and takaali chutney, and sambar, and podi. I miss the amazing varieties of bananas and mangoes, the fresh coconut, the jack fruit. I miss the bright colors. Some part of me even misses the cacophony of the roads and streets.

I miss the chaos of it all.

That's the thing, I guess. When I'm in India I miss America. I miss the ordered roads, and garbage collection. I miss the peace and quiet. I miss efficiency. I miss decent chocolate chip cookies, and I miss the people that I love over here.

But when I'm in America, I miss India. I miss the chaos and the noise of the streets. I miss the the dogs that used to live at the end of my block. I miss the rice meals, the tiffin, the chutneys, the smell of frying onions, mustard seed, and curry leaf wafting through my window. And I miss the people I love over there.

Now that I am "home," I will adjust. Adjust-pannevain. But it will be a struggle, the same way it was a struggle when I landed in India last November. I will adjust because I have to. But it's by no means easy.

Scientists Suggest To Save Energy, Stop Wasting Food

2010-10-10T14:28:00.017+05:30

In other news, the sky is blue.

Now that I have my snarky remark out of the way, I want to point out that the authors of this study are right. Especially in America, we waste an incredible amount of energy in wasting food. To quote them:

Analysis of wasted food and the energy needed to ready it for consumption concluded that the U.S. wasted about 2030 trillion BTU of energy in 2007, or the equivalent of about 350 million barrels of oil. That represents about 2 percent of annual energy consumption in the U.S.

The basic point is good. And maybe kind of obvious. To make it more useful, and help individuals and corporations develop ways to avoid the problem, I think someone needs to do a more detailed, system-wide, analysis of food production, consumption, and efficiency. I would argue that loss is both in the production of food which is then wasted - when someone's ham sandwich sits out of the refrigerator for too long, and gets thrown out. But also in product packaging. Product packaging is a huge investment of energy to produce, and a huge problem in landfills. While we frequently complain about the amount of waste produced in packaging, it's also the packaging that frequently keeps food from spoiling and getting wasted. We need better packaging, more efficient packaging, and less packing waste.

Health nuts and environmentalists shop at places like Whole Foods, where they buy dry goods in bulk, which they keep in their own re-usable, and often highly effective containers. This kind of conscientious use of food, packaging, and storage is great for those who have the time, money, and willingness to invest. But the people who do that are clearly a small portion of the population over all. I make this effort, but sometimes it turns out to be too expensive. Though I don't see a reason why it should be. I'm fairly certain it's just the fact that Whole Foods (and other stores like it) have especially high mark-up.

Ineffective or inefficient packaging is actually one of the food industries ways of trying to ensure that you will purchase their product more often. Whether the food and packaging gets wasted is really not their problem. Cereals could easily change their packaging to add a zip-loc type of closure to the cereal bag inside the box. This would ensure your corn flakes would last longer without getting stale. It might also mean you'd be slower to consume them, or less likely to throw out stale corn flakes, and buy a new box. It goes against what the manufacturers want you to do, which is consume more, no matter how much gets wasted. Corn flakes are just one obvious example, but the problem is pervasive. Either in excessive packaging - in "serving size" containers, or poor packaging which lets the product spoil more quickly, the food and packaging industries need a kick in the pants. I'm not sure if the answer is regulation, or changing consumer demand. I suspect both would help.

The problem of food storage and food spoilage is a problem as old as humanity, though it became more of of a problem with settled village life. Being an archaeologist, I can't help but think about this question, and how it's been solved over the millennia. These days it's hard to imagine a life without plastics. What would you do without your tupperware, your zip-loc bags and containers? What would you do without a refrigerator?

View of the Settlement area of the Early Historic and Early Medieval Periods at Kadebakele, Karnataka.

Archaeologists have been studying food storage practices and technology around the world for a long time now, and there are several techniques that were pretty much universal across cultures around the world. The problem of food storage really only came along when people started producing (or collecting) surplus. Without having more than you need on a given day or at a given time, you wouldn't have the problem of storing it. But once you start making more than you need on a given day, or even for a given year, you have to find a way to store it. Here are some of the solutions that people have used across the world in the past 10,000 years.

Pottery. Ceramic vessels appear pretty much everywhere around the world, especially once people started to settle down in villages and farm. Ceramics are not very efficient for nomadic life, but they work great if you stay in one place. They can be used to store liquids and dry goods. They can keep out pests - at least rodents, if not always insects. They can be made to various sizes and shape specifications, and compared with older technologies of containers - they can be more durable. Prior to pottery, it appears people used organic materials, such as baskets, possibly cloth and leather bags, and gourds. These materials have another set of benefits, as well as drawbacks.

A large storage vessel excavated at the Danish Fort of Tranquebar.
Storage pits. These features of archaeological sites are also ubiquitous, and sometimes mystifying. It's hard to imagine digging a hole in the dirt, and wanting to keep your food in a hole in the ground. But storage pits often provided a natural source of cooling, as well as potentially saving space compared with above-ground storage of goods. Storage pits also frequently were inside dwellings. Archaeologists often interpret this to mean that people wanted to protect their private ownership over the food which they had produced, making it difficult for other people to get to.

Part of a large round storage pit, early centuries BC/AD, Kadebakele, Karnataka
Storage bins, granaries and public storage. In contrast with the private storage pit inside a home, archaeologists have uncovered large buildings they interpret as granaries or public storage for grain. They have variously been interpreted as state controlled centers which would function by taxation paid in grain, and as grain savings banks. A public depository, which you could come and withdraw from later. In Mesopotamia the temples often took grain as part of donations, gifts or offerings, and then used that grain to support the labor of various other kinds of producers who lived in and were attached to the temples. The collection of surplus grain which supports other kinds of non-food production and activities is the basis of a specialized economy. It allows for monumental constructions, works of art, and military conquest.
Livestock. Live animals are a great form of storage. As long as the animal is alive, it is its own machine of creating and storing food energy. To the extent that an animal ages, and will someday die naturally, it "spoils" very slowly. Keeping the goat alive until you want to eat mutton is a great way to prevent the meat from going bad. You can also feed animals with surplus grain, agricultural bi-products like hay, and benefit from their secondary products like milk, or wool. Keeping livestock - and keeping it alive, has always been an effective and efficient way of keeping food from spoiling.

A man holding a newborn goat up to its mother to suckle. It's still too weak to stand.
Pickles. I've never been a huge fan of pickles myself, but they are an age-old solution to the problem of vegetables and meat spoiling. What to do with all that extra cabbage? Sauerkraut. What to do with an abundance of cucumbers? Dill pickles, sweet pickles, any sort of pickles. One thing you'll need: lots of salt. And also, you'll need vinegar - which comes as a byproduct of number 7, below.
Drying. Drying only works really well in certain kinds of climates, but it can be made to work even in the tropics. You can dry fruit (who doesn't love a fruit roll-up), or fish, or meat. Jerky, which is sold today in silly plastic packaging near the checkout counter at the 7-11 is actually an ancient technological solution. Even before or without agriculture, people all across the world have dried the excess meat from animals - especially hunting migratory animals that you can only hunt and kill in one season. Buffalo jerky on the high plains, caribou jerky in the arctic and sub-arctic, mammoth jerky in Ice Age Europe. Dried foods lose their water weight, are easier to transport, and don't spoil nearly as quickly. Fruits and nuts have also been important items of trade in the ancient world. Dates, apricots, pistachios, cashews, all were products of different regions of the Mediterranean and Near East. They were shipped all over the world.
Fermentation. Grain, fruit, milk, almost any food product, given enough time will start to ferment or break down. The process is usually catalyzed by various agents, some of which are naturally present in the food itself. Food, especially the plant food we eat, is actually meant to be food for the plant itself. It's a way for the plant to store energy, usually to feed its offspring in the form of seeds. A peach is tasty to a person, but the fruit sugars and flesh are actually meant to nourish the seed, the pit in the middle which may become another peach tree. Built into the fruit are enzymes which naturally cause the fruit to ripen, a process which breaks down the sugars, and ultimately becomes rotting. Add to that various bacteria, yeasts, and fungi, and you have a million ways in which food will naturally break down. Instead of letting fruits and grains break down in the way that they would if left to themselves, humans learned to control the processes of fermentation to make beer, liquor, wine, and cheese. Controlled fermentation is a great way to take something that's going to spoil anyway, and cause it to ferment in a way that produces a product which itself will keep longer, store useful calories, and be mighty tasty in the process.
Host big parties. What archaeologists call feasts, (or more high-falutin' term "salient consumption") is a great solution to having a lot of surplus. If you happen to have a lot of extra food, you can always throw a big party, (preferably utilizing some of the above-mentioned wine or beer), and distribute that surplus, making sure it gets eaten and consumed before it goes to waste. The principle is one of "pay-it-forward" altruism. It pays to throw big parties, and invite the whole community. This year you might be the one with surplus, and you might help someone else who's crops didn't do so well. Next year, when your yields are not as great, (or in the modern world, you're unemployed) your neighbor can throw a party, where you can come and stuff your face. Everyone benefits, and less food gets wasted overall.
(I considered posting a picture of some friends at a party, but decided it might be too embarrassing/incriminating... so just make a mental picture, ok, people?)
Get fat. This is actually the evolutionary solution to times of excess and times of scarcity. When humans (and other animals) lived without as much control over their environment, and without the ability to produce surplus, we evolved to store the excess when it was available, and keep it for later, when resources were scarce. You can probably be assured that our hominid ancestors never got truly obese. But they did utilize fat storage as a way to make it through lean seasons. Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending on how you see it) in the modern and developed world, most people never experience the scarcity. They only ever experience surplus, and the system is no longer really adaptive for modern conditions and habits. (Disclaimer: I'm not in any way endorsing getting fat. I'm simply pointing out that is one of the ways in which humans have dealt with surplus food in the past.)
Don't produce as much surplus. This also may fall under the category of "the sky is blue", but it's worth mentioning. If you can't keep surplus without it going to waste, and you can't dry it, pickle it, ferment it, feed it to livestock, or share it with your neighbors, maybe you shouldn't produce that much excess. As the authors of this contemporary study pointed out, energy is wasted in making more than you can or will actually use. So whether that energy is your own sweat, out in the fields, tilling more land, and producing more zucchini than you can possibly ever use, or distribute, or whether that energy is in the electricity and petroleum products used by factories to make cornflakes which will go stale and wind up in the garbage, we should work on calibrating our production to our actual consumption needs.

After my top ten list of ways humans have dealt with surplus, and found ways to avoid waste, I want to add two points. One is that, given all the resources we have now, and the number of people in the world who still go hungry, I see no reason why we can't practice some of that pay-it-forward altruism, and give away the surplus. I don't see any reason why there should be any waste at all. India recently went through a scandal, in which grain was rotting in government store houses, and poor people were starving on the streets. With enough public outcry, the government was forced to distribute some of that grain. Clearly, hunger in the world today isn't a problem of actual shortage or scarcity. It's a problem of distribution.

My second point is more of a musing. In thinking about all the foods which are fermented, I realized that some of my favorite foods in the world are fermented products. Good beer and wine are wonderful things. So is cheese. Oh, I miss cheese so much. It's also interesting that fermentation is a process which some kinds of primates also appreciate. Remember the youtube video of monkeys getting drunk on the beach? There are also monkeys that wait for fruit to ferment on the tree before eating it. They delay gratification and wait long enough for the fruit to become fruit liquor. They don't control the process, per se, but it's interesting to think that fermented foods might be evolutionarily older than the human species.

If we can't figure out a way to send surplus grain to starving people around the world, maybe we can ship them some beer instead? Ok, I hope everyone gets that that was sarcasm. But seriously, lets figure out a way to solve the problems of waste, surplus, and starvation, all together.

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world

You may say that I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one
- John Lennon

Bugs and Super-bugs

2010-08-17T21:16:00.006+05:30

Clearly I'm in the wrong line of business. If I were an entomologist, or bacteriologist I would be in heaven, and I don't even believe in heaven. It's been starting to rain again, and though I think it's quite early for the monsoon, I'm (mostly) not complaining because the rains bring much cooler temperatures, especially at night. Finally I can fall asleep before 5am, and sleep without sweating. Hallelujah! (Again, I'm not religious, but what is it that we secular types can say that carries the same feeling as "I'd be in heaven" or "hallelujah"?) Unfortunately the rain also brings bugs (and news of superbugs).

Anyway, I posted before about the spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria, and the need for a paradigm shift in medicine towards developing pro-biotic treatments. Not just vague advice to "eat yogurt" (or in South India, curd rice - yummy), but a wide variety of healthy happy bacterial treatments to fight the good fight against the bad bacteria.

Curd Rice instead of antibiotics? Sound crazy? Maybe. Maybe not.

Photo Credit: Sulkha.com

The bad bacteria are getting worse, and getting stronger. There are now multiple reports on the identification of a new antibiotic resistant genetic strain called NDM-1 (New Delhi metallo-beta-lactamase). Aside from a zombie apocalypse, what could be worse than a pandemic outbreak of antibiotic-resistant necrotizing faciitis? (The wikipedia article on necrotizing faciitis has a photo of what this bacteria does to human tissue. If you really want to freak yourself out, check it out full size - but beware, it's really not for the faint of heart, or I would just insert it in the post.)

The problem with this, in case you hadn't noticed, is that NDM-1 is a gene, not a particular type of bacteria. It is currently identified in strains of E. coli, and pneumonia, but that's not all. The gene is highly adaptive in an environment in which antibiotics kill off the bacteria which lack that gene, and can be spread through horizontal gene transfer. In other words, there is strong selection pressure for this gene, and it is likely to spread.

Now let me again make the disclaimer that I am not a physician, or a medical expert of any kind, but it seems to me that the development of new adaptations at the level of genes that can spread across species of bacteria indicates that antibiotics, at least in the form we currently have them are not going to be the now-and-forever solution to illnesses in human populations.

I'm not a big fan of Jared Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (I'll save why for another post), but he is right that germs - and one might add, antibiotics - have shaped human history. And they may yet again, in unforeseen and unpleasant ways. Unless we start to think differently, radically differently, about how to combat bacterial disease. Maybe it's just the wishful thinking of a complete non-expert, but it seems as though bacteria have been fighting other bacteria for hundreds of thousands of years. Not only that but many beneficial bacteria exist inside the human body, co-evolved over those millennia, and now are necessary parts of a healthy human digestive system, etc. If bacteria fight other bacteria, and we can live with many different kinds of bacteria in our bodies at healthy, tolerable levels with no detrimental effects, then maybe we should use fire to fight fire? Just a suggestion.

Anyway, in addition to noticing the hubbub around superbugs, I thought I'd take this opportunity to also post a picture of my most recent bug discovery. It's some sort of centipede that I've never seen before.

Unidentified centipede. Red stripe. Fast walker. Suggestions anyone?

Hosting, and guesting in the 21st century

2010-08-15T17:13:00.007+05:30

I've been a member of CouchSurfing.org for several years now, and I think it's a great idea, and a great community of people. The general point of the site is to connect travelers with people willing to host them, on a sort of "pay it forward" principle that you participate by hosting people in your home town, and then if you want to travel you can utilize this network to find people to stay with all over the world. It is truly a global network, and it has a safety/security system built in, with reviews of how someone is as a host or a guest. So it has the effect of regulating whether people are going to be cool/friendly/safe or not.

I have had many good experiences with hosting people here in India, and aside from being really busy with research I am definitely willing to host more. The main challenge is going back to show people sites that I have seen a million times by now. Still the temple here in Thanjavur is so beautiful, I don't really mind.

Brihadeeswara Temple, Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu

Even though I have had all good experiences I wanted to post these links: How to be the perfect host in the 21st century, and How to be the perfect guest in the 21st century, both by LifeHacker. I found both articles to be great guides, especially conscious of changing etiquette in the modern world.

For instance, as a host, they suggest you create an information card with contact numbers, emergency numbers, and basic info like the WiFi password to your home network. If such an info card is pre-prepared it saves both host and guest a lot of time. They also suggest taking a lot of cues from the hotel industry in providing towels, and free toiletries. While I think you should provide a clean set of sheets and towels for your guests to use, I don't know if I have enough money to provide a complete kit of toiletries like the hotels do. I guess I could start taking the hotel packs and saving them for later to offer to house guests. Usually I just tell people they're free to use the shampoo and stuff if they need to.

For a guest, they point out that you need to respect house rules, and not expect your host to actually play host all the time. You should have your own plans worked out, an itinerary of stuff to do, especially if your host warns you that they'll be busy with work. They also emphasize that you should communicate as much as possible about your schedule, about any special food allergies or requirements, and that you should offer to pay for things as much as possible. They also point out that you should be conscientious when packing to travel, so you don't have to make too many demands of your host. Use this tool to create your own customized universal packing list. For India in particular I posted a detailed discussion of what to pack.

To add to what they have posted on LifeHacker, I think it is important to work out some system of keys or getting in and out of the home or apartment. If you know your guests well, and trust them, you can give them a spare set of keys. Unfortunately people sometimes forget to give them back. You can point them to the spare set of keys hidden somewhere nearby, or with a neighbor if the neighbor doesn't mind. Otherwise you have to coordinate schedules so that the guest doesn't arrive at your place without you there or a way to get inside. This has been one of the hardest and most frustrating bits about hosting with CouchSurfing.org. I am happy to host people from the site, given they have good recommendations, but I don't always want to give out spare keys, at least not right away. I don't know that there's a perfect solution to this one, but it's something to think about, and be sure to communicate with the person you're hosting.

Lastly, I think you shouldn't host if you're going to be too busy to spend at least a little time with your guests. Guests need to understand their hosts are busy, and can't hang out all the time, but if you can't have dinner with your guests once or twice, or go out with them to do something around the town, you probably shouldn't be hosting. If I find I'm too busy to actually host someone, I always recommend affordable hostel or hotel options nearby, and try to offer to meet someone out for dinner while they're here, even if I'm too overwhelmed to have them stay with me at home.

That's my 2 cents. So, Happy Hosting and Guesting in the 21st century!

Profile in SPAN Magazine

2010-08-09T11:29:00.009+05:30

"Fulbright grantee Gwen Kelly is analyzing beads, bangles and pottery pieces from the 2,000-year-old Kadebakele excavation site in Karnataka to discover how and why economic and social connections changed in that ancient society. Preparing her Ph.D. thesis for the University of Wisconsin, Kelly has also lectured, in Tamil, to students at the Tamil University in Thanjavur and has founded the International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia. A talk on her research is scheduled at Fulbright House in New Delhi on July 31. www.iawawsa.org"

This is the profile of me in SPAN Magazine, the U.S. State Department in India's monthly magazine. It's short, and not entirely accurate. But oh well. The photo is indeed from the site of Kadebakele, in Karnataka, though that's not where I do my primary research. Also Kadebakele is much more than 2000 years old, it's at least 3000 years old. At least they got the name of IAWAWSA out there, along with the URL. Plus the magazine is online, and the piece about me can be found here.

It started in June when someone from the magazine contacted me and said they do a series on Fulbrighters, and they'd like to do a profile on me. Below is the (abridged) email correspondance that went into producing this piece.

In order to give my readers the kind of information that might have been in the profile (that I sort of hoped would be in the profile), I'm attaching an abridged version of the email correspondance here. In these emails I tried to explain what it is that I do, and why it's important. I am mildly annoyed with the magazine for the briefness and the inaccuracy, but my reason for putting up this email correspondance isn't to accuse them of anything. I understand they probably only planned a one-paragraph short profile anyway, and that's fine. But because I spent a significant amount of time writing these emails, trying to put what I do in to a non-academic, non-jargony framework, I thought maybe that effort shouldn't go to waste. What I wrote about myself and my work might still be of some use and interest to people, even if it didn't get printed in the magazine.

Dear Mr. Y,

I am honored that you have asked, and I would be happy to appear in
your magazine. I am attaching my CV, which may give you some
additional information about my background.

I wanted to be an archaeologist since I was 7 years old. I became
interested in South Asia while studying in my first year of my
bachelors degree. I first came to India in 2001 as a volunteer on an
excavation in Rajasthan. Starting during my undergraduate studies, I
was most intensely interested in South India, and this led me to study
Tamil language intensively both in the US and in India, and focus my
research interest in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka. I have worked
on archaeological projects in these three states as well as in
Rajasthan.

My dissertation research developed because of my interest in the
connection between society and economy. It became clear after reading
about the Iron Age and Early Historic periods in South India, that
there still is no consensus about the nature of social and economic
organization over this long time period, or how it changed. In order
to begin to address this question, I decided to focus on a site that
had already been excavated. The site is Kodumanal, located in Erode
District, Tamil Nadu, near the foothills of the Western Ghats. This
site is important, and useful for trying to understand social and
economic organization because there is evidence that people at the
site were involved in the production of beads and ornaments in
semi-precious stones, and that they were linked to the Indian Ocean
and Roman trade in the Early Centuries AD. By analyzing the
archaeological materials, beads, pottery, shell and glass bangles,
etc., I am hoping to be able to reconstruct aspects of the social and
economic organization of the time. In addition to looking at
artifacts, my methodologies also include interviewing modern potters
about their craft and techniques, and conducting experiments in the
manufacture of all of these crafts, to better understand how they were
made in the past. This understanding of technology, and the different
stages of production can tell us how that production can be organized
in different ways, reflecting aspects of social and economic control
or exploitation.

In addition to my research, I have also started an organization, the
International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South
Asia (www.iawawsa.org). The organization is inclusive of both women
and men, but aims at supporting and encouraging women to pursue
careers in archaeology in South Asia. The goal of the organization is
to promote women's rights and equality in the workplace and the
professional domain of archaeology. One aspect of this is to connect
researchers from both inside and outside South Asia who share research
interests. It is an international network with members currently in
seven countries, both in South Asia and abroad.

As for the picture, unfortunately most of the time I am holding the
camera, and there aren't that many pictures of me doing my work.
There are a few pictures of me taken by others, and one in particular
that I'm thinking of, and I will contact them to see if they are
willing to have that picture published. I assume they will say yes,
but I want to make sure first.

Please let me know if you have any other questions, or would like a
longer or more detailed description of my work. I tried to be brief,
but I really don't know what you are looking for. So do let me know if
there is anything else I can tell you.

Best,
Gwen Kelly

Dear Gwen,

The editor and the studio has approved the photo quality and thanks for the additional info. The editor wants to know more about your work here on your current Fulbright and what are you doing at the university or with them.

Thanks again for your patience and time.

Best.

Dear Y,

It would really help if you (or the editor) could ask specific questions. I don't know what to say in regards to "more about my work on my current Fulbright". In what way more?

I am primarily based in Thanjavur, and my work is mostly here, looking at artifacts, pottery, beads, etc, from their storage room. It is very meticulous and slow work. It doesn't sound as glorious or exciting as most of what people hear about archaeology. But it's the kind of work that really produces the data that allows us to take what is found from excavations, and make something meaningful out of it.

As for what I'm doing at or with the Tamil University: I am doing my research independently, with the help of one student research assistant. In addition, I taught a short course on Archaeological Method and Theory to the Masters, M. Phil and some of the Ph.D. students. The lectures were in Tamil.

If you want more, it would really help to have some specific questions. Or perhaps this would be best done by phone. If you want to, you or the editor or whoever, is welcome to call me.

Best,

Gwen

Hello Gwen,

Wondering if you received the attached mail I forwarded to you by the Editor.

Thanks.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: L
To: Y
Date: Wed, 9 Jun 2010 11:16:14 +0530
Subject: RE: Fulbrighters in India

Thanks, Gwen for the additional information.

1) Once you look at the artifacts, then what? Do you note things down about them? What do you note down? How will what you have observed and recorded be used? Who will use it? For what?

2) 2) Regarding your research, what are you researching? (theme, focus, aim, etc.?) Will you be producing a paper? If so, for whom? A lecture? If so for whom?

3) Thanks again. And great picture.

Hi Y,

Actually, I didn't get that email forwarded. I am just seeing it now. So here goes:

1) Once you look at the artifacts, then what? Do you note things down about them? What do you note down? How will what you have observed and recorded be used? Who will use it? For what?

Looking at artifacts involves looking at a lot of details. I have several databases which I designed, which allow me to enter data about each sherd of pottery, or each bead, or each bangle. For pottery, for each piece, I record the diameter of the mouth of the pot, the maximum diameter (if possible), the height of the rim, the thickness of the rim, the angle of the rim, the color on the exterior and interior, the surface - whether it's polished or not, if there is any decoration, what kind of decoration is there, and finally assign it to a shape or vessel category. I have defined about 100 categories of kinds of things (modern equivalents would be soup bowls, pasta bowls, cereal bowls, saucers, salad plates, dinner plates, creamers and sugar bowls).

This data gets collected for several thousand pieces of pottery, and then it can be analyzed by separating and combining different elements, including where it was found in the site, how deep/old it is, and all these various kinds of data I collect. This allows me to compare how many bowls there are compared with how many cooking pots in a given area of the site. It also allows me to look at fine-grained change over time in things like the shapes of vessels, the angles of the rims, the sizes that they come in. For instance, modern plates are standardized, even between different brands and producers, there is a standard size for a dinner plate. With smaller non-industrial producers we can see this as a process, standardization over time is considered an indicator of increasing scale of production. The less a person makes pots, the more irregular they are likely to be. The more they make pots, the more regular and standardized in their shapes and sizes.

In addition to pottery, I also collect similar kinds of attributes for beads, bangles, spindle whorls, and other artifacts. All this data is combined together, and analyzed using basic statistics, looking at different proportions of things, how those proportions change over time, etc. These kinds of patterns, whether they are patterns in space, or in time, at the site are the basis of interpretations. Using a set of theories and models about people, with different forms of social and economic organization, I then interpret those patterns to try to answer questions about how many different groups of potters might there have been at the site of Kodumanal, how much time were they spending making pottery? Each of those questions has implications in the larger interpretation of how the society and economy were organized, and how that organization changed over time.

I then take those data and interpretations, and write them into my doctoral dissertation, and into articles that will be published in journals in India and the US.

2) Regarding your research, what are you researching? (theme, focus, aim, etc.?) Will you be producing a paper? If so, for whom? A lecture? If so for whom?

The goal is to try to understand aspects of the social and economic organization at the site of Kodumanal, and in South India in general, during the period spanning the last few centuries BCE and the first few centuries of the Common Era. As a means to understanding society and economy, I'm focusing particularly on technologies of production, since techniques and technologies of production directly relate to the organization of production, and the society that they were produced for. Technology relates to both production and consumption, and it helps us identify different aspects of who was producing something like pottery, and who - meaning different groups or sectors of society - was consuming it.

I will be writing my PhD thesis, and submitting it to my academic advisor and committee at the University of Wisconsin - Madison, as well as producing papers for publication. I also will be giving lectures and conference presentations. In the near future, I'll be giving a short presentation on my research to the members of my organization - IAWAWSA - at our first ever meeting in India, which will be held on July 31st, 2010, at Fulbright House in New Delhi. I will present the results of this work at other conferences, wherever and whenever they are held around the world.

3) Thanks again. And great picture.

Glad you like it. :)

Time-Lapse Photo software for the Mac? ImageCapture!

2010-06-22T19:09:00.007+05:30

I (somewhat) recently bought a new DSLR camera: the Nikon D3000. I had no idea what was best, and didn't have the time really to do very in-depth research about which camera to purchase. Usually before buying a new camera, or any expensive piece of equipment, I would prefer to do such research, but I was buying this one with just a few days to go before leaving for India, and was overwhelmed with other preparations on my way out of the country. I took the advice of my cousin Jon who is a professional photographer (his amazing website here), that Nikon is the best brand, and with that alone, went to a camera specialty store in LA. I allowed myself to be persuaded by the salesman to buy Nikon's new D3000 model, something he said which was in between their previous amateur and pro- lines (what they call 'pro-sumer'). It was at about the right price-point for what I wanted to spend, and it had all the features I thought I would need. It also came with what seemed like a desirable lens: 18-55mm. I needed a macro for research purposes, and so bought a separate (thankfully used, but in excellent condition) AF macro Nikkor 60mm 1:2.8 lens. It is much heavier, and higher quality than the camera body. So much so, that though the lens supports auto-focus, the camera does not have a motor strong enough to drive the auto-focus mechanism, and therefore it is not able to auto-focus with the macro lens. I was warned of this, and it didn't really matter, because I usually prefer to manually focus on my macro subjects: beads, pottery, etc, because I prefer to select the focal length, and what element of the object is in focus.

I have since read reviews which call the D3000 Nikon's 'worst camera ever'. But it's too late now. I'm not really a pro- user, so there are plenty of really fancy things that I'm not even aware that I'm missing. I've been really happy with the camera in general, until now. Now I wouldn't say I'm unhappy with the camera, but I ran into one particular need where my old relatively 'crappy' digital point-and-shoot was better. Video. Not that the quality of video taken by my old point-and-shoot (PAS) was very good, in fact it was pretty awful. But at least it was video, and for some things, video captures better than still. Even when the quality sucks.

I ran into this problem when I started visiting a local potter to begin doing some experiments in firing pottery to try to recreate some of the ancient pottery that I've been studying. I wanted to shoot some video of his various activities, laying out the pots to be fired, or making them on the wheel. Without the ability to shoot video, I thought the best option would be to take something like time-lapse images, which I could later stitch together into a video. The frame rate would be low, but at least I could capture a series of images over time, showing the activity in progress. My first attempt was manual - I set the timer on my cell phone, and walked up to press the shutter button on the camera (on a tripod) every time the timer on my phone went off. This got pretty old pretty quickly.

It was recommended that I download Nikon's own Camera Control 2 software, which I did (30 day free trial), only to discover that it doesn't support the D3000 model. I started searching for "time-lapse software for mac" or "remote shutter control software" and any other phrases I could think of to google, that might find me something I needed. I came across a few free and paid apps, supporting various lists of models, none of which supported the D3000. Some of them looked great. I would have downloaded them, if they listed my camera among the supported models. Then I came across this review which said "I should point out that the D3000 cannot be controlled from your Mac or PC, unlike Nikon's more expensive models."

I was becoming discouraged, and almost ready to give up, when I came across the software Icarus Camera Control. I went to his list of supported cameras, and found only three supported cameras, though the developer suggested that it may well work with others. On going to the support wiki I found his narrative of how he developed the product:

Icarus Camera Control came about because I have a Nikon D80 that I want to connect to telescopes and control via my MacBook. Nikon sells software for camera control (Camera Control Pro) but it is expensive and getting more so, it is terribly slow, and is a horrible battery hog. It is completely unusable for portable work. So I started writing my own camera control tool.

Linux has gphoto2 infrastructure for controlling cameras. That works well for a wide variety of camera, including my Nikon D80, but it works very poorly on Mac OS X. It compiles, but it can't really get at the camera due to Mac services that already grab access to the camera. So while I could surely use gphoto2 to make a Linux application, I need something more native for the Mac.

Mac OS X, it turns out, has the Image Capture Architecture that is exactly for this purpose. The ICA provides an abstract interface to locate and access cameras, as well as a means to get at the lower level PTP commands to do the more interesting things that one wants to do with a camera. And this is the level where Icarus Camera Control operates. It uses the ICA to locate the camera and images on the camera, get thumbnails, and perform basic camera control functions. It then uses PTP messages passed through the ICA to perform more direct camera activities, including probing device features and capabilities.

Which led me to think to myself 'Image Capture Architecture' meaning, it has the built in utility 'ImageCapture'?? Is this another example of something where the app I'm looking for is already installed on my Mac?? Indeed it is.

Image Capture (found at ~Macintosh HD/Applications/Image Capture), though it is not fancy, does exactly what I need for remote (USB connected) timed shutter release. It allows me to set the interval in seconds minutes or hours, and it allows me an option to determine a directory where those files should be saved - directly to the harddisk. It doesn't allow me to control any of the cameras settings, light, aperture, speed, ISO, none of it. I still have to manage those settings on the camera itself. But once it's set up, all I have to do is click start, and it begins taking pictures at my determined interval.

To stitch the pictures together into a time-lapse movie, I am able to use another pre-installed app: iMovie.

None of these are "pro" apps, none of them allow the control that someone might want if they were going to get really technical with the thing. But I'm not at a stage where I want to get technical. And I am amazed at how, after all this searching, the applications that I needed, with the functions I wanted, were on my computer all along, and they work great.

In addition, I found these online guides to time-lapse photography and movie-making useful: Photojojo.com and Tucows.com

I promise I'll post the results of this time-lapse stuff soon. :)

Some Thoughts on the Future of Higher Education: YouTube Lectures, Distance Learning, and Open-source Education

2010-06-09T23:47:00.009+05:30

Recently The Chronicle of Higher Education ran a piece called "A Self-Appointed Teacher Runs a One-Man 'Academy' on YouTube: Are his 10-minute lectures the future?" by Jeff Young. This piece suggested that Salman Khan, an MIT graduate with a bachelors degree, who one day decided to start creating 10-minute YouTube lectures on various subjects, was the beginning of a trend, and possibly a paradigm shift in higher education in the US. Like most articles of its kind, I think it is intentionally written to be provocative. Especially when considering the audience. The Chronicle of Higher Education is primarily read by academics. In other words, professors and administrators, people who are highly invested in the system of higher education, and as such, probably to some extent invested in the status quo. They, especially the old and stodgy types, are likely to reject that technology is the answer, or in fact, that there is anything wrong with the system at in the first place.

What follows is my attempt to answer Mr. Young's question, whether 10-minute, informal YouTube lectures are somehow the future of higher education.

First, I should start out by saying that higher education does have problems. Plenty of them. The current system (in the US), the status quo, is by no means satisfactory to many of the participants, teachers and students alike. Some of the complaints are as follows (from my personal experience, first as an undergraduate student, then as a graduate student, and a teaching assistant). Undergrads (and their entire families) wish that college wasn't so expensive. Now that going to college seems to be a prerequisite to get a job, practically any job, it has become a necessary cost to most Americans. Without a college education, in modern America, as in the past several centuries, you are at a severe economic disadvantage. The educational gap is part of what (at least seemed) to create the gap between rich and poor.

Actually, access to education has for most of recent history been a symptom, rather than a cause of economic differences. The GI Bill, and the increasing availability of federally subsidized student loans created a huge increase in access to education. There is no doubt that this was a good thing. But, it didn't really change the structure of universities, and instead of economies of scale making education cheaper (as one might think), the cost of education seems to have gone up. Universities definitely have costs, they have the cost of the classrooms, the buildings, dormitories, libraries, lab equipment, etc. Now, with computers, they have the cost of constantly maintaining and upgrading computer systems for student and faculty use. In addition they have the cost of faculty salaries, highest for the law schools and medical schools, since those folks could be getting much better paying jobs practicing instead of teaching. They have the cost of paying salaries to all their administrators. I'm sure that's not all. There is no doubt that there are huge costs, some of them of value to students (teachers salaries, teaching materials, access to research equipment etc), but also some costs that have no apparent benefit to students.

More and more, students, especially those who pay from their own pockets (or their parents), have started to look at their education from the perspective of consumers. In this way, education is becoming increasingly commodified, and courses, majors and degrees are evaluated by students and prospective students in terms of cost-benefit analysis. Students get mad, if when paying for their studies, they are not satisfied with a course or a professor, they feel as though they have been ripped off. I don't necessarily agree with this perspective, but I do understand where it's coming from. But, like any large society, democracy, or bureaucracy, a course with lots of students can't possibly please them all. Some students may love a course. Others may hate it.

The increasing access to education, and the increasing number of students going to college has created a problem of scale. Educational research (not to mention common sense) tells us that different students learn better in different ways. Some of us are auditory learners. We learn best by listening. Some are visual learners, and learn best by seeing. Some people learn best by touching and working with something hands-on. I think it's fair to say we're all experiential learners. But with so many students now, its difficult to serve all these needs with a single model for teaching or education.

So if the question is posed as: "Do 10-minute lectures on YouTube serve a purpose?" I would say the answer is yes, obviously. They give people - not just "students" - access to information in a short, easily consumed package. They are free to the user (minus the cost of the computer and/or internet access), as are many thousands of lectures on iTunesU - where universities are posting course lectures as podcasts, or MIT's OpenCourseware Consortium. Providing content for free is great. The opensource concept which lies behind many of these efforts is great. But I don't think it's going to replace or supplant the current system of colleges and universities, at least not in the near future.

What can such digital online educational media provide? Lots of things. They can be used as supplementary tutorial material for students who are studying a subject, and need help understanding it. They can be introductory pieces, giving information and background on fields of study, and the kinds of results those fields can obtain. They can give access to knowledge and information to people who might otherwise have no access whatsoever. And those are all wonderful things.

But there are lots of things, at least with present day (2010) technology, that a 10-minute YouTube video lecture CAN'T do. For instance, it can't give students hands on access to labs or other materials. In anthropology we teach many courses with hands-on activities. For human evolution we look at casts and reproductions of fossils of our hominid ancestors and the skeletons of contemporary primates. For archaeology we give students a chance to look at ancient pottery, beads, stone tools. We can teach them how to flake stone tools, not only by showing it, but by giving students two rocks to bang together, and guiding them through the process. You can watch as many videos - or Discovery, History, Nova/PBS, or NatGeo TV shows you want about human evolution or archaeology, but this doesn't replace the experience of being able to hold such things in your hand and observe them directly with your own senses. Without this sort of hands-on access, everything about education would be purely conceptual. And while lots of knowledge is purely conceptual, that's certainly not true for everything.

Another drawback is the ability, or lack thereof, to simply raise your hand and ask a question. The YouTube model, and other social media models, do give the opportunity for feedback, through a comments system, but it is much more difficult to engage in a full scale question and answer session, or even debate over a topic, at least with the existing software. Even with an (oldskool) IRC style chartroom, at least, such a discussion might be possible.

The last, and perhaps most important aspect of education that is missing from a 10-minute YouTube video model for higher education, is the opportunity, or even necessity of students to do their own work, their own research, to think, and write, and then have that product be evaluated by their peers and their professor. A frequent end to a college course is the submission of a final paper and a class presentation. Ideally, students should be submitting their own work, their own thoughts and responses all along, during the course of a semester. In large scale education, this does get cut back, and that's definitely a problem, but not one that's solved by a 10-minute YouTube video.

Many universities are now offering distance learning courses. They are modeled on the traditional method of giving 1-hour lecture two or three times a week. Students submit questions by email, or post to a message board, and watch online videos, or sometimes audio-accompanied powerpoints, in a relatively low tech solution. It works passably, as a system, as most any student who's taken a distance learning course will tell you. But it's got serious drawbacks. Is it possible that 10- or 20-minute chunks are more digestible than the current hour-long discourse? Definitely.

I think that learning at a distance, is one answer among many, to the question of the future of higher education, and how to get information, or perhaps better thought of as knowledge, to more people. I think that to reach the level where distance education can meet all of the same requirements, and provide all the same things as in-person, physically present education, technology needs to advance a LONG way. For instance, technology, such as in a virtual reality simulation, could potentially bring students the same level of interactivity with each other, the professor, and "hands-on" experiences with lots of things. But that sort of virtual reality is decades if not more away from us, and may never develop in the way it has been envisioned in science fiction. Even if high-quality virtual reality were possible, I still think I'd be advocating real, human, in-person, direct contact for the best quality of education.

But that's just the thing. Even if we take that some version of in-person education is the best, potentially the most rewarding for both teacher and student, we are again stuck with the problem of scale. The worlds population is currently almost 6.9 billion people, and counting. It's growing, and will continue to grow (though that's a debate for another post entirely), and we want to educate everyone, or as many people as possible. In order to do that, we have to diversify the ways and means of distributing knowledge and information - this is definitely already changing in the digital age, with YouTube, Wikipedia etc. And we need to change the model of university education, to reduce those costs.

But, if you've ever listened to any NPR station, podcast, or YouTube video lecturer asking for donations and support, you know that there will always be costs involved. There are costs to creating new knowledge - otherwise known as research, there are the costs of supporting teachers to live and buy food for themselves and their families, there are costs of distributing knowledge, especially bandwidth, which is a cost both to the distributor and the consumer. These costs will never go away. It is now mainly a question of who will shoulder the burden. Will we someday have advertising supported education: "This lecture brought to you by Cyberdyne Systems"?

I personally would like to see the college and university system miniaturized rather than super-sized. I think that many, many small colleges and institutions could do a much better job serving peoples needs for education, around the globe, with less overhead, fewer administrators, etc. This would bring education to the people, rather than bringing the people to the education. In the sense that small colleges, and community colleges already exist all over the US, this need is to some extent already being addressed. Community and vocational colleges are providing good basic education, at a much lower cost than the larger universities. They are much more numerous, more locally accessible, and open to all. This system could potentially be replicated abroad.

Another solution is to diversify the approaches to content. Some students want or need a liberal arts education - with courses in a wide variety of topics, outside of the one they ultimately select as a major. Other students may not want or need those courses. Offering programs that are more targeted on one particular topic, without requiring students to take courses in other areas could also reduce the number of years in education, and the cost to the individual. I believe the option should be left open. I personally loved my liberal arts degree. I loved taking courses in many different disciplines. But such programs are not even available in the UK or India, where degrees are solely in the subjects that they are listed under. A student in a bachelors in physics, for instance, will study nothing but the discipline of physics. Not to say that there aren't diverse fields within physics, but still, a student in India taking such a course will at no time be expected to think about politics, or read a novel. This can be a good thing, or it can be a bad thing, depending on the individual, and the topic.

There is a lot to appreciate behind the idea of free, online, 10-minute lectures. And maybe, with increasing technological developments, these sorts of environments will be able to offer some of the aspects of in-person education that are lacking. Whether or not a person is giving accurate information is another thing to worry about. But I think, in the future of social media, crowd-sourcing, and potentially open-source education, I'm not sure that will be the biggest concern. I think my biggest worry about a digital age, open source, distance education, is that education isn't just about gaining knowledge or information, it's about learning how to think for yourself. It's about learning how to communicate those thoughts well to others. Having personal contact and relationships is hugely important. Having a mentor, a person who responds to you personally, and with insight, and care, is something that will become increasingly difficult to find in a YouTube/Wikipedia model for education. That is why I don't think these technologies can ever really replace the relationship between teacher and student.

With more and more students, we need more and more teachers. We cannot attenuate this link to nothingness. One professor cannot teach us all, because one professor, (or ordinary citizen like Salman Khan) can never REACH us all, in the way that, at least sometimes, professors reach out to students and not only impart information, but guide us into becoming better people, better thinkers, and better citizens of the world.

Because of the benefit that mentoring relationship has brought me, I want like to thank all of my teachers, and especially my mentors, who were and still are more than just teachers. Anyone who has ever had a great teacher, or a great mentor, and I hope that's most people, I think we all understand the value of that relationship, which is something that a YouTube lecture can never provide.

Thank you to the teachers who have touched my life: Ms. Trout (2nd grade), Mrs. Dever (6th grade), Jennifer Shikes-Haines (7th grade), Mr. Halpern (9th grade English), Mrs. Grover (10th grade History), Mr. Panasenko (10th grade Biology), Dr. Cohen (11th grade History), Dr. Linda Grimm (Oberlin College, Archaeology), Dr. Michael Fisher (Oberlin College, History), Dr. Perween Hasan (Oberlin College, now University of Dhaka, Art History), Dr. Lynn Fisher (Oberlin College, Archaeology), Dr. Lipika Mazumdar (Oberlin College, now U. Pittsburgh, Anthropology), Dr. J. Mark Kenoyer (U. of Wisconsin-Madison, Archaeology), Dr. Sissel Schroeder (U.W.-Madison, Archaeology), Dr. Carla Sinopoli (U. Michigan, Archaeology) and Dr. Kathy Morrison (U.Chicago, Archaeology)…. just to name a few.

I don't think I would be the person I am today, if I had simply listened to lectures online, even if those lectures were given by the very same professors and teachers I am listing here. These people have done more than lecture material at me, they have taught me how to think, and how to write, and how to be a better person. Maybe my list is exceptionally long. Maybe I have been extraordinarily lucky. I hope not. I hope everyone has the opportunity to have such wonderful teachers and mentors as I have had, on and on, into the digitally mediated future…

Update 6/8/10: Recently was linked to this article, which argues for a return to truly "classical" education.

Belonging

2010-06-02T01:42:00.004+05:30

Why is it that we humans seem to want, or even need to belong? What is belonging, and how do we measure it?

The music swells at the end of the film, the young man joins his tribe, his group, his people. He finally belongs. Members of the group greet him like an equal, like a friend. He is reunited with the girl he loves, and now he can be with her. They hold hands, walking with the group towards a new future, through the ashes of the past.

This could be the end of many movies, but in particular I'm reminiscing on the end of Avatar (by James Cameron). Like many Hollywood movies before, the themes of love, hardship, and belonging carry the film about an otherwise ordinary, and perhaps uninteresting character.

I almost hate to admit it, but in that moment at the end, (sorry folks, spoiler) where he is accepted, and his soul transferred from his human body to his Na'avi body, and the music swells, and he gets up and walks away with the girl, hand in hand, in that moment tears welled up in my eyes. Now maybe I'm extra sensitive, maybe I'm more emotional than some people, but I don't think I'm the only one. It felt like an almost autonomic response. There seems to be something deep and universal about this need to belong. Something that pulls at us, that identifies deeply with the need to belong, and the relief, satisfaction, contentment that Jake Sully feels when he finally does belong.

I am fascinated with this subject because I have always been fascinated with things that are universal in human nature, and simultaneously fascinated with the things that make us different.

It seems to me that the need to belong is universal, but the act of belonging, the groups, tribes, cultures, languages, religions, political parties, to which we belong, are part of the immensely diverse manifestation of that need.

We've come up with so many solutions to belonging, we can't avoid the fact that many of them are contradictory: Religions that each proclaim to have exclusive truth, cultural and ethnic identities defined in opposition to the other. Sure some groups are non-exclusive. You can be a member of a book club, and also a member of a volleyball team. But you can't (at least technically according to both groups) be both a Muslim and a Hindu. Some of these groups are in friendly, or not-so-friendly competition. Others are at war.

I have come across many examples of this problem recently. For example, apparently India used to allow multiple citizenships. Now, it seems, they are demanding NRIs (Non-Resident Indians) who have obtained other (such as U.S.) passports to surrender their Indian passports, and pay a "processing fee". Apparently, you they are just now choosing to enforce a rule that you can't have dual citizenship in both countries. (Petition for NRIs to sign here).

Anthropologists have long examined the ways in which people define their identities, as members of various groups, frequently nested within societies. What function today as the major categories of identity were not always the most important ones. Today, it would seem broadly, that religion and nationality are the most important identifiers. At least these are the ones that divide us the most.

Within nations, there are political groups. Parties, and perhaps more strongly in many countries, the "right" and the "left". In many places, party politics depend heavily on other aspects of identity to mobilize and form their membership. Ethnicity, language, religion (or sect of a religion), these elements are all used, played like strings on a harp to make people feel like they belong.

Most world conflicts, wars, civil wars, massacres, colonizations, invasions, and battles, though they may, at their root be about money or resources, most conflicts are played out, and defined in terms of "us" and "them". Because "us" and "them" are really arbitrary terms, accidents of birth, of time and space. I think this is partly why it fascinates me so much.

Even though the categories that make up "us" and "them" are arbitrary, and in some sense illusory, they seem very real, and people act as though they are real. The same is true of international boarders, lines on the map.

To be asked to belong, might be the greatest feeling in the world. To be invited to join something, to be told you have something to contribute, that we value your presence, provokes a powerful feeling. A recent NY Times article talked about the marginalization of young Muslims, and how this relates to their radicalization. The article made this seem like rocket science, that someone had figured out, if you don't want people to join the 'enemy', you might want to ask them to join you instead.

But to me this isn't rocket science. People want and need belonging. And if they feel marginalized and pushed out by one society, they are going to seek another that accepts them, that validates their views, that gives them vindication, and perhaps even one that gives them the opportunity to retaliate. The solution? Not to marginalize them further, to accuse, to arrest, to put them in jail, but instead to offer them a place at the metaphorical table.

As modern nations become a jumbled up mix of people migrating and immigrating from other nations, bringing their different identities, and with them, different practices, beliefs, languages, and ways of life, it seems like a growing problem of figuring out how so many different people can belong together to something greater.

In the United States of America, the solution to this problem has always been to tell immigrants that the something greater is America itself. To become a U.S. citizen, to be American was a chance to belong to something great.

But, as I've said before, it's not clear to me that the nation-state is the best solution to this problem. We unite everyone in America as Americans, and (we used to, more or less) make them feel welcome, and wanted, and to feel like they belong, but we do this in counterpoint to other nations. This is a tact that seems to me to be designed to foment and facilitate war.

In reading the news, I am faced with many different versions of apocalypse. Nuclear disarmament activists warn of the risk of impending nuclear war. Environmentalists warn of the changing climate, the rise in sea-level, extinction of animals, the total transformation (or annihilation) of earth's ecosystems. These are just a few of the ways in which I am told the world, or civilization, or everything as I know it may come to an end. And while I agree that many if not all of these causes that are news-worthy are important, and something should be done, I believe that if we are to have any chance at surviving ourselves, at avoiding nuclear holocaust, etc, we must also find a new way of belonging.

If we are not enemies, if we all belong to the same 'tribe', then we won't need nuclear weapons. If we join together, and decide to belong to something greater than religions or nations, then we have a much better change of being able to do something about climate change.

It shouldn't be to hard to see what I'm pushing at, the unification of humanity, the concept of belonging to us, to our species, to unite us above and beyond everything else.

Strangely enough, it had actually occurred to me recently (and before watching Avatar), that what Stephen Hawking said about the fact that we probably shouldn't try too hard to contact aliens, since they might just come over here to kill us, wouldn't necessarily be such a bad thing. My strange and totally flawed reasoning was that an alien threat would help to unite humanity. Maybe, if we had something truly "other" to fight against, and define ourselves in opposition to, we would learn to embrace our unity, and get over our differences.

Taken further, to its ultimate conclusion of inter-species warfare, that solution isn't really a good one either. But then I'm not the first person to think of that either. Avatar represents it, and vilifies humans for their destruction and exploitation. Even if we're fighting another species, that doesn't necessarily make us the good guys. This is a point most effectively brought home by Orson Scott Card in the book Xenocide.

So, what can I say? It is clearly human to want to belong. Perhaps it is even biologically programmed. Maybe such needs are also programmed in to other social species, dolphins, whales, parrots, wolves and primates. Maybe it would be there in alien species as well. If our species isn't the answer (or our planet), then we are stuck in an ever expanding universe of inclusive belonging, a plan that doesn't seem very tenable either.

By needing to belong, we seem to need to define the other. We need not only to belong, but to define that to which we do not belong. While this may have been an adaptive strategy for early hominids, defining the hominid social group, in juxtaposition with competitors, or predators, it's not a good working model for the future of humanity.

At some level, I love the things that are universal. I am fascinated by the things that we share. These things are probably to some extent defined by our biology, and evolution. But they are not all good. We are universally capable of hatred, and fear. We are universally inclined to belong, and in doing so, define others, against ourselves.

Even though belonging is this thing that unites us, and watching a movie about some young guy finding himself, finding that sense of belonging with an alien species tugs at some heart strings, I think we need to find a way to rise above it. Not necessarily to find bigger and bigger entities to which we can belong, but to stop feeling that need so strongly. Or at least to stop feeling it in a way that requires defining the other in opposition to the self.

A life dilemma

2010-05-10T14:51:00.008+05:30

As I come closer to finishing my degree, and (hopefully) starting a career, I feel as though I am faced with a serious dilemma about my future. The U.S. economy, and lack of jobs may decide my fate for me, if I am unable to find a job. But assuming I am able to get an academic job, any job in any college or university, I feel like academia affords me two choices. One, is to aim for the greatest prestige, a job in a top school, publish lots of books and articles, and get to be well known, and respected, and get tenure. The other is to take a job in a smaller college or university, one that isn't particularly prestigious, one where perhaps the emphasis is on undergraduate teaching, not on publishing and research.

Maybe it is a form of conceit on my part, but I feel like, should I choose to pursue it, to put all my effort and energy in to writing, and research, I could be successful, by these standards. There are no guarantees in life, but it doesn't seem impossible. But I'm not sure that this sort of success would bring me happiness. I'm not sure it would be fulfilling or satisfying. Because, it seems to me, in order to achieve that, I would have to sacrifice a lot of other things which I love, and which give me happiness and satisfaction.

Even to get through graduate school thus far, I feel like I have already given up most of my hobbies. Besides writing academic papers, there are a lot of things that I enjoy doing, most of which I haven't had the time or resources to do. Not that I would have pursued any of those things as a career either. I did woodwork, pottery, printmaking, made jewelry, sewed, painted, wrote poetry and short stories. I was always learning new things, new crafts. And there's more I want to do, more I want to learn.

I know in some sense, that thinking about these things at this point in my life is somewhat pointless, as the time to make such decisions has not yet come. I haven't even finished my thesis, or gotten my degree yet. But I am always one to worry, or to cast it in a less negative light, one to think ahead to the future. I can't seem to be able to help it. However you call it, it's a part of who I am. And so I am pondering my life ahead of me, and decisions yet to come. And I suppose I want to work out in advance, the principles I feel should guide those decisions. I want to work out how I feel and what I think, so that when those decisions come, they'll be easier to make.

Of course the equation is more complex than I have made it out to be. I also want a family, and I want to have children. And even though it seems as though modern society tells me I can have both a career and family, it seems that only one sort of academic career is conducive to having a family. Not that you can't be successful and have children also. My mother is a great example of how this can be done. But I do think that, seeing my mother, as well as other women professors, it seems that it is very challenging, and that you may have to wait to have children until much later in life, after you have tenure, and are settled down. You may have to prioritize the career over having a family, and hope that the opportunity to have a family will still be there later on.

The other option appears to go for the less high-powered career. Still a career, still in academia, but one with less prestige, with fewer demands and expectations, with less pressure to produce, and to be known. It seems to me, from my current vantage point, that such a career would give me the opportunity to have the best of both worlds. It would afford me the time, and enough energy left over at the end of the day, to have children, and a family, to have hobbies and enjoy life.

Maybe this is too naive a view. I don't know. I'm not yet in a position to see it clearly. I know every job has it's pros and cons. I know that nothing will ever be perfect. And you can't be happy all of the time.

Even as I write this, I feel somehow guilty. I feel to say this somehow goes against all the efforts of my mother, and feminists of her generation, and before and after, who have fought for women's right to have a career. They fought to be respected as individuals with intellectual merit. They fought for the chance to have high-powered and successful careers in prestigious institutions. And I feel guilty saying that it's not the path I want to follow.

I appreciate the fight. And, when it comes to my organization, IAWAWSA, it's a fight I think is worth continuing, for women around the world. The right to have a career, any kind of career that you want. The right to be high-powered, even famous in your field, and the right to be little-known, except by your students.

I realized today that my career cannot be my whole life. If I let my career consume everything else, I will end up miserable and unfulfilled. Archaeology is a part of who I am, it is something I love deeply, and want to continue doing for the rest of my life, but it can't be everything.

Perhaps it is overly optimistic, but I want the fairy tale ending. I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want the happily-ever-after.

Just for fun, I'm adding a few pictures of a craft project I did in 2006, a dollhouse I made for my niece. It was something enjoyed making, and it also embodies the idea of that fairy tale, the happily-ever-after.

The castle exterior
Castle interior, dolls at play

May is the hottest month

2010-05-09T15:07:00.005+05:30

I am so glad I am not in Thanjavur right now:

Instead I am here:

and I'm going here:

The Indus Valley Debate: Language, Script, Identity, Complexity

2010-03-26T16:58:00.008+05:30

Recently a friend of mine pointed me to an article from The Independent on The Indus Valley Civilization, that posed the question: Was the Indus script really a script, or was it just a symbol system? Hidden within this question are several others: Were the Indus people capable of something as complex as a script? What language did they speak and/or write? and Who were they?

First, some background. The Indus Valley Civilization was centered on the Indus river and grew and flourished between 3300 B.C.E and 1300 B.C.E. It's exact boundaries are not known, but the sites where the Indus script are found are spread all over Pakistan, Western India, with some additional sites in Oman, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan.

It is considered by most scholars to be one of the major early "primary" states, i.e. it developed independently of influence from the outside. It was an urban civilization, with many large cities, with dense populations, neighborhoods, urban planning, and water and waste management. It also had many smaller towns and villages, mostly agricultural, some engaged in different specialized economic activities, such as coastal fishing villages, and sites with an almost industrial scale of shell bangle production.

So who were the Indus Valley people? Was their script a script or a symbol system?

A Steatite Seal with Indus Script and the Image of a Unicorn.

The article starts off by first quoting a local tour guide saying he's not sure the people of Harappa are his ancestors, because they had such complex technology. Then the article goes on to create a completely false divide between scholars in the west, and scholars in India and Pakistan. According to the author, Andrew Buncombe:

Many experts in south Asia and elsewhere believe that symbols and marks inscribed on seals and other artefacts found here represent an as yet undeciphered language. Arguing it may be the predecessor of one of several contemporary south Asian argots, these experts say it is proof of a literate Indian society that existed more than 4,000 years ago.

But other experts based in the West say although the symbols may contain information, they are not a true language. They claim the judgement of their counterparts in south Asia may be swayed by regional nationalism.

This ethnic/racial divide between people who claim it is a script and people who claim it isn't is total bull****. Pardon my French. There are plenty of scholars in the "west" who have written extensively about the Indus script as a script - not a symbol system. Examples among these are Asko Parpola - a Finnish professor of Indology at the University of Helsinki, and J. Mark Kenoyer - professor at the University of Wisconsin - Madison (and my academic advisor).

A variety of people over the years have argued that the Indus script is really a symbol system, and not a real script. Their reasons for this usually stem from the lack of (preserved or discovered) long inscriptions. The vast majority of inscriptions come on Indus seals, with some on pottery, inscribed on shell and terracotta bangles etc. Wherever they are found, they tend to be just 6-10 letters or symbols long. This is the main reason why it has not yet been deciphered. As one of my professors put it, for the Indus Script, all we have is the white pages in the phone book. For those who do believe that these symbols are letters and not pictographs, it is argued that the seals, and other short inscriptions are the names of people and places, probably with honorifics. There may have been inscriptions or texts on paper, bark, papyrus, wood or cloth, all things that are not preserved today. We will probably never know if there were or not.

And that is the real problem with the debate. The answer is we really don't know for sure. We can take the data that we have, and draw inferences and interpretations from it. We know these letters/symbols are standardized, that there are patterns in which ones repeat, and in what order, that they are found on objects that we would consider to most probably have belonged to individuals, and not groups. There is also an inscription, one that was inlaid in wood on a sign board near the gateway to the city of Dholavira. The signboard had fallen, the wood disintegrated over time, but the inlay lay as it had fallen, flat on the ground, buried for thousands of years. We can make an inference, a judgement, based on the context of the inscription, it's placement, location, size etc., that it probably said "Dholavira" or maybe "Welcome to Dholavira". Without decipherment we can't really know for sure.

Aside from the short length of inscriptions, what has prevented any really conclusive and convincing decipherment of the Indus script is the fact that we don't know what languages people were speaking. Note the use of the plural: Languages. That's a huge problem, in a civilization as large and complex as the Indus Valley was, with sites spread across a huge area of mostly Pakistan and India, but also as I mentioned with sites showing presence in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan and Oman, we should not assume that everyone was speaking the same language. They probably were not. There were probably people from diverse backgrounds, speaking different languages, who came to trade, who may have used Indus styles of clothing, ornaments, and other markers of identity (or not), but still spoken different languages, perhaps their "mother-tongue" as well as whatever language was the lingua franca of the Indus Valley, the language people had in common.

It is really only modern identity politics that makes the language question matter. Modern South Asia has hundreds of languages, and most people speak more than one. Battles for identity are fought over language today, and the supposed "Aryan Invasion" that brought Indo-European languages to the subcontinent is an ancient sort of incarnation of the concept that people with a different language and identity came to India and took over. The Aryan Invasion Theory has been thoroughly debunked, but the modern implications of who the Indus Valley people were, are still at issue.

The people of modern Pakistan (and India) should be able to claim that the inhabitants of these amazing sites, with all their amazing technological achievements, are their direct ancestors. That this heritage is their heritage, and not somebody else's . So when someone comes along claiming that the Indus Valley script isn't a script, or that it was used to write a Dravidian-family language instead of an Indo-European one, or some other lost language, it is an insult to the people of modern India and Pakistan.

Because the inscriptions are so short, and because they were most likely using the script to write in more than one language, (the same way the roman script - that I'm using now can be used to write French and Spanish and Italian, among others) we can't really say for sure.

The argument that their civilization was complex, and therefore they must have had writing, is sort of a fallacy, though I can see why people would use it. There is no reason necessarily that a complex society must have had a complex writing system. It just so happens that, as far as we can tell, the Indus script has all the features of a writing system, and not a pictographic or symbol system. The same debate was waged about Egyptian hieroglyphics until the Rosetta Stone was discovered, which allowed the decipherment of hieroglyphics as a script, and not a bunch of symbols (bird, wheat, pot, man, fish, are all letters representing sounds like an alphabet, not symbolic representations of birds, wheat, pots, men, or fish).

So the truth is, we can't really be sure. The Indus script displays all the features of a writing system, (Steven Farmer is really, really wrong about this), but we won't know for sure until it's deciphered, and we can't decipher it until we know what languages they were writing, and which language was being written in a particular inscription. We probably can't know most of those things, unless we find longer inscriptions, or the Indus Valley equivalent of the Rosetta Stone.

Parpola (the Finnish Indologist) and Iravatham Mahadevan (an Indian epigraphist) have both argued that the script was used to write a Dravidian language. Neither of them have yet come up with a conclusive decipherment, but even if they (or someone else) someday is able to prove that the Indus Script was used to write a Dravidian language, this does not mean that the people of the Indus Valley are not the ancestors of modern Pakistan and India, who speak Indo-European languages.

Language and identity are one thing, and genetics another. A good example of this is the diversity of languages that was spoken in France before the standardization of Modern French. The people are the same, but over a number of generations they stopped speaking the languages they used to speak, and started speaking standard French. People may have spoken a Dravidian language (or another language which is lost today), but that doesn't change the fact that there is strong genetic continuity between the people of the Indus Valley Civilization and the modern inhabitants of Pakistan and Northwestern India.

Disclaimer: I'm not a specialist in Indus Valley archaeology. But I am an archaeologist and I have read a lot about this topic. This is my commentary on the subject, not an academic paper -- I'm not citing every statement I make. I probably should, but I don't have time. If you're really interested you can go track down publications by J. Mark Kenoyer, Gregory Possehl, Rita Wright, and many more. For more information check out Harappa.com.

EDIT:

Recently The Hindu newspaper published an interview with Asko Parpola. This is some of what he had to say:

The Hindu: There is some criticism that the Indus script is not a writing system.

Parpola: I do not agree [with that]. All those features of the Indus script which have been mentioned as proof for its not being a writing system, characterise also the Egyptian hieroglyphic script during its first 600 years of existence. For detailed counterarguments, see my papers at the website www.harappa.com.

The Hindu: If it is a writing system, what reasons do you adduce for it?

Parpola: The script is highly standardised; the signs are as a rule written in regular lines; there are hundreds of sign sequences which recur in the same order, often at many different sites; the preserved texts are mostly seal stones, and seals in other cultures usually have writing recording the name or title of the seal owner; and the Indus people were acquainted with cuneiform writing through their trade contacts with Mesopotamia.

So there!!

The Fight for Equality Goes On

2010-03-24T16:18:00.012+05:30

I used to think Feminism was finished. That we were done with it. Not because it was irrelevant, but because I thought it had achieved its purpose, and was no longer really necessary. I was of this opinion by about age 15, when in high school, in Berkeley, California, as far as I could tell, women were equal to men, boys to girls. Pretty much every adult woman I knew had a career, had achieved as much if not more than some of the adult men I knew. Kids in school seemed equal, and so through the lens of that very limited (and perhaps rose-tinted) glass, it seemed to me feminism was no longer needed.

I was aware of feminism at the age of 15, because my mother was a feminist scholar and writer, someone who thought about and had written about gendered inequalities for most of her adult life. But at that point in my own life, I just didn't see the point. Why make such a big deal? Women were feminists, they had fought for equality, for their right to vote, to own property, to make decisions about their own bodies and health. Women had fought, and won. Or at least so it seemed to me.

It took me a long time to realize that although this might be true, in limited contexts, severe inequalities still exist for women in many other places. Of course by college I had heard of the Taliban, and of various other forms of discrimination in America and around the world. But I had never really confronted it face to face. I don't think it really hit home until I came to India for the first time in 2001. By that time I had read enough anthropology about India, and Indian culture and society to be at least somewhat prepared for the gender bias that permeates most of Indian society. Here the bias against women persists across boundaries of language, religion, social status, across pretty much every barrier that divides Indian society.

I don't want to reiterate a large body of academic (and non-academic) work on gender relations, roles, and inequalities in South Asia. For those that are interested, I'll put a few suggested readings at the bottom of this post.

Women's education and literacy still lag behind men. Women, even Ph.D. educated ones, are frequently expected to give up careers in order to marry and have children. The feminine role of wife and mother is one where frequently little compromise is allowed. I don't want to paint an entirely dire picture. These things are changing somewhat, and bit by bit, young women are being allowed (the key word: allowed) to pursue both a career and motherhood. This is not made easy, since facilities like daytime and after school child care are extraordinarily hard to find. Women may sometimes be far more educated than their husbands, with career and earning prospects higher than their husbands, but family and culture dictate that she should stay home, and the husband work or pursue his goals. I had this discussion just the other day with an educated and intelligent woman, married into an especially conservative household here in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. She told me her in-laws (with whom she now lives in a joint family) don't allow her to sit on chairs. Men sit on chairs, and women are expected to sit on the floor. She works at a shop which is owned and managed by her husband's family. She isn't allowed to pursue a real career based on what she studied. She is not allowed to leave the house by herself, without a male relative as a chaperon.

In the university where I am conducting my research, there are many young women students. But only one woman in the department faculty. Most of the students will never get the chance to pursue archaeology as a career.

Women are also, to varying extents, viewed as sexual objects, and not as equals and human beings. They are subject to harassment in public spaces: groping, grabbing, lewd comments. This is horrifyingly and surprisingly common. It varies to some extent from North to South, with less harassment in South India than the North, but still is present everywhere. This is not even to mention the frequency of rape, domestic abuse, and more serious forms of sexual abuse.

Indian women are not the only victims of this harassment. All women are subjected to it. I have personally been groped, had my breast grabbed, been cat-called, whistled at, had men expose their genitals to me, listened to innumerable inappropriate comments, attempts to kiss me, solicit me, and 'seduce' me. I have heard stories told by women whose experiences were worse than that.

I guess if you've been reading this blog up until now, maybe you'll realize where this post is going. Recently I started an organization: IAWAWSA, the International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia. In my last post on the subject, I talked a bit about the goals of the organization, but didn't go into much detail as to why I decided to start it. The above issues in contemporary Indian society affect both Indian women and foreigners like myself. I wanted to start an organization to support women, and their career goals, to support research conducted by women, and to bridge the gap between different nationalities, to talk about the issues of gender bias that we all have in common.

It turns out there is still a need for feminism, for empowerment. Still a need for equality.

So now that I've talked about some of the issues and challenges that women still face in India, in the realm of equality, rights and freedoms, I want to address some points about what I want IAWAWSA to become.

The gender bias that exists in India is systemic. It is pretty much across-the-board. And if it is going to change, it needs to be confronted and challenged from all possible angles. I did not start an organization to give micro-finance loans to women-run businesses (though if you want to do that I recommend Kiva.org), and I don't belong to an NGO. There are plenty of those. I started an organization that I hope will help the people I know, women archaeologists, and simultaneously help further research in subjects I think are important.

Ultimately I do hope to be able to offer funding, scholarships and grants to women to do research and pursue their careers. But at the moment we are an organization that offers a less material form of support. We can offer the support and encouragement to each other as peers, and as mentors. We can offer the support of opportunities to learn, opportunities to do fieldwork, opportunities to conduct research. Until we have the funding to offer financial support, we will conduct conferences, seminars, and have meetings to get to know each other. We can develop more specific initiatives as we go along and gain in membership.

This brings me to my last conundrum. I started this organization with the express and specific purpose of helping women in a struggle for equality. The struggle is waged at both the level of colleges and universities, but also, and most importantly in the wider social context. I want to support women. I want to empower women. I want to have an organization FOR women. But the "for" does not necessarily imply that it is exclusively made up of women.

Exclusion based on gender is part of the problem. Excluding women from joining groups, being able to participate in a wide variety of activities a huge part of the problem. To exclude men would not solve anything. It would, it seems to me, just strengthen the divide between men and women, and create an atmosphere of hostility, rather than cooperation.

Civil rights for African Americans in the US were not won by organizations that discriminated against whites because they were not part of the category those organizations were created to help. A gay rights group is still a gay rights group, even if straight people join. And a group like IAWAWSA is still a group to support and empower women, even if men join.

In fact we need men to join. We need men to understand the problem. If the society as a whole is going to change, as it needs to for women to become equals, the change has to come from everyone. Women alone can't change the system. Not only would it be hypocritical to exclude men based on their gender, it would be counter-productive to our overall goal.

It has recently been suggested to me that if men are allowed join IAWAWSA that would change the nature of the organization. That would make it an organization FOR everyone. It would change everything. I strongly disagree . The stated purpose, the raison d'être of the organization, to support and empower women in the profession of archaeology, and it need not change if men are members. To the contrary, I think that male membership will strengthen the organization, and demonstrate that we are all equals.

I don't really expect many men to join IAWAWSA, but if they want to, if they want to support the cause of equality, and empower women to pursue careers and research, then I think that's wonderful. It gives me hope that more men will come to see the value and importance of equality. The sooner that happens the sooner the system will change.

I am curious though how you, my readers, feel about this issue: so I have a short poll here to find out what you all think.

Should men be allowed to join an organization that is "for" women and women's empowerment?polling

If men join an organization that is "for" women, and the empowerment of women, does their membership change the nature of the organization?polls

Suggested (and very selected) readings:

Bumiller, Elizabeth (1990) May You be the Mother of a Hundred Sons. New York: Random House Books.

Jeffrey, Patricia (1979, 2000 reprint) Frogs in a Well: Indian Women in Purdah. Delhi: Manohar.

Desai, Neera and Maithreyi Krishnaraj (2004) An Overview of the Status of Women in India. In: M. Mohanty (ed.), Caste, Class, Gender: Readings in Indian Government and Politics (pp. 296-319). London: Sage Publications.

A Day in the Life

2010-03-24T10:27:00.001+05:30

I am an archaeologist. I love that I get to say this whenever anyone asks the inevitable question, "What do you do?" The inevitable response: "Oh! I always wanted to be an archaeologist." Which leads me to ask them, "So why aren't you?" The answers to that one vary from, "my parents never would have supported that", to "well I discovered I wanted to be a ______ more", but most commonly, "well i never thought you could really make a career out of it". To which my answer is usually (silently), "It's not that hard!".

In any case, the profession of archaeology has a sort of mythos amongst the general populace. The stereotype is somewhere between Indiana Jones (rugged, outdoorsy, unshaven, and adventurous) to Lara Croft (sexy, rugged, outdoorsy, adventurous, and um... shaved?) In any case, whatever our use of razors, we are apparently either hyper-masculine or hyper-feminine, and we prefer the jungle to the library. The latter is probably true, but the former not so much.

Whatever the gender, the other representation that the public has of archaeology is through extraordinarily dry and boring TV shows on PBS, Nova, and the History Channel. The actual work of what it means to be an archaeologist, what it is really like, is rarely accurately represented in the media. So I guess I've decided to take it upon myself to try to change that.

So what is a day in the life of an archaeologist like?

Well, the true answer is that there is no typical day. And that is probably the best part. Even within a single profession, we wear many hats, and routines change frequently, moving across the globe in many different settings. On one day, you might find me excavating at a site somewhere in India, and on another day find me in a library, a university classroom, a lab, walking across a landscape, or staring at the most minute aspects of an object, like a bead drill hole, using a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).

The truth is that aside from the manner in which most archaeologists divide their time between teaching and research, there are many, many different things that constitute doing archaeological research. To start with, I'll outline a day in the field, excavating, since that's where I was most recently, and that may be the most fun part of the job. But keep in mind that the amount of time spent excavating is frequently a rather small percentage of an archaeologists time. Out of a year, most archaeologists are lucky to spend 2 months in the field excavating, and even that is limited by funding, research permits, and other constraints. With that in mind, here we go, down the rabbit hole, a typical day in the field:

5:45 am - Wake up. It's still dark outside. I have set at least two alarms to make sure I drag my sorry, exhausted, carcass out of bed. I am not a morning person, but to dig, it's worth my while to wake up. It's not uncommon for me to form some expletive, out loud, or in my head, as my first waking thought. "****. I have to get up. ****. Oh, but I get to dig!" And I hop out of bed.

6:00 am - Get dressed. Field clothes: usually some sort of REI cargo pants, many pockets, hopefully vented for air circulation, and a cotton shirt. Applying gobs of SPF 50 waterproof sunblock. Applying some sort of bug repellent.

6:15 am - Get packed for field. Backpack must contain: Trowel, notebook, clip board with necessary recording forms, pencils, measuring tapes, line level, plumb bob, cloth and plastic bags to collect artifacts, sharpies to write on said bags. Also need four liters of water, extra sun screen, extra bug spray, first aid kit.

6:30 am - Departure. On my most recent field project, we stayed in the rather luxurious accommodations of a hotel. This isn't always the case, but it certainly is nice. We'd hit the road by 6:30, stopping on the edge of town for breakfast, on the way to the site.

8:00 am - Arrive. Start digging. Well, actually, start making notes. Making notes, recording observations, taking measurements, and writing down every possible piece of information is the most important part of digging. We don't just dig things up out of holes in the ground to admire them aesthetically. The artifacts, whether they are pottery, animal bones, beads, charred seeds or wood, stone tools, are meaningless without context. Without understanding where an object comes from, it is essentially meaningless.

So for the sake of argument, I'll just say we're starting to excavate a new "level". What is a "level", you might ask. A level is an volume of dirt, which is a layer of soil, as it was originally deposited there, hundreds or thousands of years ago.

At Kadebakele, the site where I was recently working, our units were 2x2 meters square, though the area being excavated might combine multiple 2x2 meter units, up to 4x4 or 4x6 meters together. These areas were selected because they represent different parts of the site, areas where different activities were occurring. Because people did things differently in different areas, there are different layers of soil in each place. Our job is to understand what was going on in an area at a particular time, and that means taking out a layer of soil which is horizontal, which was deposited as the result of some activity in the past.

Because we dig deeper, and deeper, and as we dig, we remove the dirt above, in effect destroying it, we must record the exact position and relationship of objects in a layer, (or level). To do this we have a piece of paper called a "Level Form". A level form helps us keep track of all the relevant information. For instance, how deep were we when the level started.

To measure this, we have set up something called a "datum", a point for which the exact elevation (in meters above sea level) is known. From the main datum, we then set up a point near each trench, called the "sub-datum" to measure the depth of things within that trench. We set up the sub-data (plural of sub-datum) because sometimes the trench is a long way away from the main datum, and because we can. Once we know the elevation of the sub-datum relative to the main datum, we can also know the elevation of everything inside the trench.

Because dirt accumulates over time, in layers, the layers on top are the most recent, and the layers on the bottom are the oldest. This is the law of superposition. Things frequently don't work out as neatly as this, but for the sake of argument let's just pretend that today they are. That means that identifying the layers, as they were deposited, and digging each one up separately is the most important thing we can do, in order to understand what was going on in the period in which that dirt was deposited.

So the top of the form. We write down the starting depths of our level. We use the metric system, because well, it makes sense. We write down 5 different depths, each of the four corners of the square unit, and the center. We do this because though things are deposited in layers, those layers aren't always exactly flat. Sometimes they slope down, or make a hump up, or do a million other things.

We then record things about the soil itself. What kind of soil is it? Is it sandy? Is it silty? What color is it? We use the Munsell soil color chart as a way of specifically identifying the color so that it can be compared later. "Brown" isn't a very useful or descriptive term. We also describe how compact the soil is, it's texture, and how densely filled with artifacts it is.

We start digging. We look for changes in the above mentioned aspects of the soil. We want to take out all the dirt that is the same together. We want to leave dirt that is different for the next level, or if it's a smaller area than the whole unit, like a pit, we will call it a "feature".

I scrape the dirt with my trowel. Is the dirt the same color as it was above? Is it the same texture, the same compactness? Any sort of change might be grounds to stop excavating this level, and start a new one. Everything artifactual, mainly pottery, animal bone, charcoal, beads, bangles, assorted other objects of human manufacture, is placed in some sort of bag and container, and labeled with the information about it's origin. It is labeled according to the designation of the site, the trench, the unit, the level, the depths, the type of contents, the date and the people excavating it.

These objects will be analyzed later. This is one of the other ways in which I (and many other archaeologists) actually spend a lot of my time. It's not enough to dig up a bunch of stuff. In order to really understand it, the people who made it, what life was like at that time, we have to employ many different methods to analyze these different kinds of artifacts. This is food for future blog posts.

In any case, the principle is, if the dirt is different, it may belong to a different time period, and the objects found inside should be kept separate. They can always be combined later, if it is decided that two separate levels really belong to the same time. But this determination is left until later when other data, like radiocarbon dates, can be employed to help determine whether or not these differently colored or textured deposits of dirt are different or not.

We dig more. All of the dirt that comes out of the unit is put through a metal screen, of at least 1/8th of an inch mesh. This helps us catch all the small things, that would almost certainly be missed if we just had to go by eye. Everything is important. Everything is data. For instance we will collect the animal bones, and they will be identified later to help understand what people were eating, and how their diet and habits changed over time. If we didn't use the screen, if we didn't collect the small bones, we'd have a very biased perspective. It would appear that people ate mostly large mammals, such as cattle, pigs, sheep, goats, and maybe wild animals like deer. With the bones we collect from the screens, we find that people were also eating small birds, small mammals, and fish.

We put these different artifact categories into different bags. We label the bags carefully. We keep track of how many bags there are, by writing that information on the form. We also collect items like charcoal, and measure the exact coordinates of that charcoal, in order to get the kinds of radiocarbon dates I mentioned before. Ideally we'd like to have a date for each layer that we excavate, so that we can see the full sequence of dates and understand the deposition of the layers at the site.

Still digging. I notice that the soil is becoming more compact. It's also a different color. I'm coming to the end of my level. I remove all the dirt from above this change in the soil, and call that the end of the level. We record the ending depths, four corners and the center. We make more notes about the contents of the level. We draw a map (in plan view) of what the bottom of the level looks like. Is there a house? are there stones making up the wall of a structure, is there a pit? These kinds of things have to be mapped, because they will be removed and destroyed in digging up the next level.

If there is something like the outlines of a structure visible in the holes where wooden posts once stood, or in the stone foundations, this is important. We want to try to figure out what kind of structure it was, and if possible excavate the material inside the structure as separate from the outside. This will help us understand what kinds of activities took place inside the structure, and what kinds of activities went on outside. We may not be able to tell if something is a house, or some other structure until later, when we do analyze the contents.

In this system of excavation and recording, something like a structure becomes a 'feature'. It gets a separate kind of recording form, and it will be excavated so that we can see what's going on inside it, versus outside.

What I am describing is a very oversimplified version of how these things usually go, but it's meant to help you non-archaeologists understand. So I hope my fellow archaeologists will stop rolling their eyes now at the over-simplification, and let me go on.

In the case of one of the trenches I was recently supervising in excavation, the major 'feature' of the trench was a large pit. Actually two large pits, to be exact. Pits are tricky to understand because they get filled up with dirt, but their filling-up is usually un-related to the reason why they were dug in the first place. As far as we archaeologists can understand, people most frequently dug pits for storage. They needed a place to put things, food, or other important stuff, and without cabinets and shelves, and tupperware containers, the easiest place to put things was in a pit in the ground. But then most pits don't fill up with the sorts of things people actually wanted to store. Most of the time it would appear people took out their food or clothes, or whatever they were storing, and filled the pit up with other dirt that wasn't important. Sometimes they may have filled in the pits on purpose, and other times they may have been left open and un-used, and filled up over time, rather unintentionally.

So I finished excavating my first level. At the bottom of this level I have noticed two different kinds of soils, not just one. Around three edges of my square 2x2 meter unit, I found a mud-plaster surface, a surface someone prepared intentionally, perhaps as part of a house or courtyard. This surface is very compact, and it's light colored. But the surface doesn't cover the whole unit. There is a giant pit. The soil inside the pit is much looser, and darker brown. It's also much more full of artifacts. In other words, it's full of garbage.

In this case, the pit is identified as a 'feature'. It gets excavated separately. It will also get excavated first, because, by definition the pit is a later intrusion into the surface which it is dug into. The surface had to be there first, in order to have the pit dug into it. We will try to excavate out the contents of the pit before excavating the material around it, so that we can also avoid mixing the material from these different time periods.

Even within the pit, we try to dig out different layers of the dirt inside the pit separately. Among the most important English phrases the Kannada-speaking villagers who work with us have learned is: "separate separate", right after "different different".

Oops I left out lunch. Oh well. We usually stop for lunch around 12:30 or 1:00pm. We eat a picnic lunch of plain and masala buns, with fresh veggies like cucumber, tomato, and onion, and an occasional hard boiled egg. We have additional snacks like (the eponymous) tasty nuts, dried fruit, and a box of apple juice. Reapply sunscreen. Especially those as pale as myself.

4:00pm - Quitting time. Pack everything up. Carry back to the village all buckets, tools, etc. More digging will have to wait 'til tomorrow.

4:30pm - Back to the hotel. Long ride home. The scenery is beautiful. At least on the main road, the traffic can be atrocious. Hopefully we'll be home in an hour. Sometimes it takes as long as two.

6:30pm - Lab work time. Now that we're back at the hotel, and (hopefully) freshened up, it's time to do all the work on the computers to record all the key information from the day. Primarily this involves checking in all the bags of artifacts that we collected, and entering them into the database. Once they have been entered, the pottery can go back to the village where some of the local women are employed to wash the dirt off it, so that we can study it more easily later. The rest of the things get sorted by categories and locations, and put in to various trunks and boxes for later analysis.

7:30pm - Dinner. Meet the crew and go out for some grub. Exhausted, starved, and sometimes bedraggled and dirty, we are always an interesting sight to see at any of the restaurants around town.

8:30pm - Back to the lab. Usually there's still work to do after dinner. More data entry, more organizing the finds.

10:30pm - Bed. Totally and utterly exhausted. Not a minute spent in my day doing anything besides working, eating, bathing, and working. Barely enough time left over for breathing. I'm usually asleep before I've even hit the pillow. Have to make sure the alarms are set for tomorrow.

.....

5:45am - ****. ****. Time to get up and start another day. OOOH! I get to dig up stuff no one has touched in over 2000 years!

A very unpleasant experience

2010-03-06T21:56:00.002+05:30

I was having a lovely evening ... went to a great sushi place in Bangalore tonight with my two friends from the dig, my last night here before I go to a conference, and before they leave to go home to the U.S. I had a great dinner, and great company, and was feeling like life was pretty good.

But after arriving back at the hotel, a rather fancy establishment on Residency Road near Bridage Road, I had one of the top most unpleasant moments of my time here in India. I asked for my clean laundry at the front desk, when I returned from dinner, since I am leaving in the morning and I have to pack the clothes. The man at the desk said he'd send someone.

I went up stairs, said goodnight to my friends and went to my room. I was met in the hallway, by a young guy holding a bag with my laundry. When I opened the door to my room, he tried to step inside, but I stopped him at the entry way, and told him to put down the laundry there. I tried to get rid of him, because he seemed creepy even then, but he said "You check" and indicated the laundry. So I set down the bag and opened it. I was counting the clothes looking down at the bench, when he stepped closer, and I looked over and realized his penis was hanging out of his pants. It was right there, and it wasn't an accident. He told me to sign the receipt, and I did, avoiding looking at him all together, to get him out as quickly as possible and shut the door.

I called the front desk and asked to speak to the manager, but I was told he isn't there now. The man asked if he could help me. So I told him what happened, saying that the man who delivered my laundry had "inappropriately exposed himself to me". He came up stairs to speak with me in person, but he brought the guy with him. So when I asked to speak to the front desk guy they both stepped in to the room. Without looking directly at him, I gestured at the guy, and said "He has to leave". So the manager told him to wait outside, and stepped into the entry to the room. I asked him to close the door so I could speak with him privately. He did, and I explained, gesturing at my own "down there" and said "He exposed himself to me!". I had to say it twice for it to sink in, but then the front desk guy did indeed look very shocked. He paused for a second, and then asked "Maybe by accident?". I told him, "No, I don't think it was an accident. When he walked away, he was laughing."

The hotel desk employee or whoever he was, apologized profusely, said in the future that it would not happen. I don't know if there will be a future as I'm pretty sure I never want to stay at this hotel again, but I guess that's reassuring.

I think the thing that's bothering me the most is that now I don't feel safe, or like I truly have privacy in this room. It has made me paranoid that there is some sort of secret hole in the wall, that the mirror is really a mirror you can see through, or some other invasion of my privacy. It's probably unnecessary paranoia, but it isn't a pleasant feeling to wonder if there are sick men hiding on the other side of the walls, watching with their parts exposed.

I don't like to feel like a victim, and if I can help it, I'll just avoid the feeling all together. I suppose it could be worse, he didn't try anything else, but I do feel sort of victimized, assaulted, and harassed. I also feel like there is a pretty good chance that that this has happened to others here, but they may have been too ashamed or embarrassed to talk about it or complain.

I am not the kind of person who feels that sort of shame or embarrassment. I half contemplated for a moment whether this event might in some way be my fault, whether I might have done something that invited this. But I immediately discarded that notion. I recognized it immediately as one of the signs of victims of sexual assault or abuse. I trained in college as a sexual assault support counselor. I know how common it is for victims of many forms of sexual assault to blame themselves. A google search will tell you the same thing. So I decided I am not to blame. I reported it once to the front desk, and I will report it again in the morning.

I don't necessarily feel that the entire hotel is bad, or that it should be avoided. I think most of the people who work here are decent and good people. I don't blame them either. But I do hope this employee loses his job, and I hope that I am wrong in my paranoia about holes in the walls. I am not sure I'll ever stay here again, but I'll have to see how I feel about it later. Maybe I'll be able to get over my anxiety and come back again. Or maybe not.

Longing

2010-03-05T18:21:00.003+05:30

I know it's been a while since I've written. I was working on an excavation in Karnataka for almost two months, and it was extraordinarily busy and exhausting. It was also wonderful, and I'll write a post about that soon. Just a note of warning, this post is a bit more personal than what I usually write. And by personal, I guess I mean emotional. Oh well.

Now that the excavation season is over, everyone I was working with is about to go home. They return to comfort and familiarity, to family and friends. And I will be in India for about 8 more months. Though I have not been homesick at all in the past four months, I was suddenly hit with pangs of longing, as I listened to my friends talk about the things they are looking forward to back home.

The thing is, I'm not really homesick. I don't have a home to be sick for. I find myself longing for a home that doesn't exist. I find myself missing a home I have never had. I long for the home I someday hope to have. It's pure fantasy, it lives in the form of day dreams, scribblings, and internet research.

The home I dream of having changes from day to day. It changes settings, countries, and climates. It changes changes architectural styles, and it varies in size, form, color, and shape.

I have no real formal training in architecture. But when I was about 6 years old, I took an empty tissue box, added cut out cardboard wheels on drinking straw axles, and independently invented the concept of the 'mobile home'. At summer camp I started doing woodwork, and made a number of small items, and then began to work on furniture. When I was in high school I studied architecture and design, primarily in the form of a class at The New School on furniture design. I particularly enjoyed the section on the Bauhaus Modern, and wrote my paper on Mies van der Rohe. Though many of my scribbled drawings of my imagined home are frequently in my own version of the high modern style, I actually feel most at home in places with much more natural wood and stone, than I do with stainless steel. I love the warmth of wood, the color of light that it reflects, the infinite visual depths of the grain.

One thing is constant. The plans of my imaginary houses are always open, airy and full of light. One version of my home is perched on the side of a mountain, overlooking a deep valley. In this incarnation, it is mostly glass (triple-pane for good insulation), with stone floors. It is built into the mountain, and two or three-tiered, partially subterranean. It leans into the mountain, and is rooted there, with windows on three sides. It smells like the damp earth.

In another incarnation my home is in the desert, it is single storied, and square like a hacienda with a huge open air courtyard in the interior. It has a peaked ceramic tile roof, with wooden rafters, and adobe walls. It is made of shade, and sunlight, with a cistern to catch the rain. The courtyard is paved with sandstone and pebbles collected from a dry gully wash. The pebbles make a secret mosaic, only showing their colors when they are made wet by the rare desert rain.

In another incarnation the house is a cabin, deep in the woods amongst rolling hills. It is small in plan, but with a tall atrium roof. The interior is paneled with a warm rich pine wood, honey colored, and sweet smelling. It nestles in amongst the trees, with bright tall windows, it brings in the light that filters through their leaves. The light changes the house with the seasons, from green to yellow red orange, to white and back to green.

Another version of the house is three storied, brick and stone and wood. On the ground floor, in the center is a living room under an atrium that goes up three stories to the roof. On either side, two separate staircases lead up to bedrooms and on the third floor, studies. My third floor study is surrounded on all four sides by windows with built in book shelves all around. Across the atrium opening, through my windows, I can see the man I imagine I'm married to puttering about in his study, making notes, pacing back and forth, absorbed in his work or some other project.

Aside from the changing architecture, the changing materials, climates and locations, my homes have variously changing inhabitants. Sometimes they are full of pets, a dog, two cats, or a couple of parrots. Sometimes there are kids. Sometimes I am alone. Lately, these daydreams have been populated by one person in particular. This is the most dangerous part of the fantasy, the part most likely to cause heart break and disappointment later. It's also frequently the hardest part to avoid imagining.

Of course, these homes are concepts of design, primarily in the aesthetic sense. If they were to become realities, I would have to take into account the question of environment, of energy efficiency, of water, etc. Obviously these things are important, but to me they are impossible to conceptualize in the abstract. Each location, each climate, each house would have its own specific needs, its own conditions of heat and cold with which to contend. Those things can and should be dealt with later, dealt with in reality.

To add to the list of homes described above, which are the product of many years of thought, many years of contemplation and sketching in notebooks, I have recently been given new concepts to consider, especially: WeeHouse and some of these from TinyHouseBlog.com such as this, and this. These teeny tiny houses appeal to me at multiple levels. First, it brings me back to my original (re)invention of a house on wheels, a home you can take anywhere. Second, I love the eco-friendly nature of it, and the coziness of something so small, so compact. I love the idea of minimal living. It is a way of life I feel I am more or less engaged in now.

To imagine a home that I someday hope to have, however, is really an exercise in futility. In the career path that I have chosen, to be an archaeologist, I will in all likelihood have to sacrifice the ability to choose where I will end up living, and simply go wherever I can get a job. To have a job at a college or university, if it's in the US, probably means that my home will not be in the desert, on a mountain top, or amongst deep woods. And although the image of this home is important to me, it isn't as important as my career.

Home is where the heart is, or at least, that is how the cliche goes. The problem is that my heart is divided amongst so many places... places that I have lived, places where family and close friends are, and places that I hope to someday live. Recently my heart has set up shop in a new location, with it's hopes no longer set on a place, or a kind of house, but rather on a particular person, who I can't seem to stop myself from hoping will be the co-inhabitor of this imaginary home. As I have repeatedly told myself to let go of the attachment to all of my other dream homes, so as to avoid disappointment later, I have told myself to let go of this hope as well. So far though, no success.

Politics, Power, the History of India and Me

2010-01-02T02:53:00.006+05:30

Lately I've been reading "The Jewel in the Crown" by Paul Scott. It's the first novel in a series about the end of the British rule of India, and it was the basis for the Merchant Ivory film production by the same name. Though it's a fictional story, it's set in a very real historic moment, one that I find especially fascinating.

As an undergraduate student at Oberlin College, I was first exposed to the study of India and South Asia by in a two semester history course taught by the amazing Dr. Michael Fisher. This course began with the Indus Valley Civilization, and ended with contemporary South Asia. Though I chose to pursue archaeology as a career, my interest in the the colonial history of South Asia, which was spurred by Dr. Fisher's course hasn't diminished. It is a period in the history of South Asia, and in fact of history generally, which I think has a lot of lessons which can and should be learned and remembered in the modern world. It also provides an interesting model in which to think about past (pre- and proto-historic) episodes of colonialism and imperialism.

My reason for bringing this up here, however, is not to expound upon the academic value of the study of South Asian colonial history. It is to reflect on the impact it has had on me personally. There are many threads that make up this knot, in which I feel I am firmly tied to both India and the United States, and to global history, politics and economy. I am going to attempt to pull apart this knot just a little bit here. And in doing so, first I would like to present an extended quote from the novel "A Jewel in the Crown". It is from a letter written by the character Hari Kumar (Harry Coomer), to his friend Colin Lindsey in England, where Hari/Harry was raised:

"Vidyasagar is a pleasant chap whom I rather like but have a bad conscience about. The first few weeks I worked on the Gazette the editor sent me round with him practically everywhere, and then sacked him. Vidya took it well. He said he guessed what was in the editor's mind when he was detailed to show me the ropes. He said, 'I don't hold it against you, Kumar, because you don't know anything.' He chips me a bit whenever we happen to meet and says that given time I might learn to be a good Indian.

But I'm not sure I know what a good Indian is. Is he the fellow who joins the army (because it is a family tradition to join the army), or the fellow who is rich enough and ambitious enough to contribute money to Government War Funds, or is the rebellious fellow who gets arrested like Moti Lal? Or is the good Indian the Mahatma, whom everyone here calls Gandhiji, and who last month, after Hitler had shown Europe what his army was made of, praised the French for surrendering and wrote to the British cabinet asking them to adopt 'a nobler and braver way of fighting', and let Axis powers walk into Britain. The nobler and braver way means following his prescribed method of non-violent non-co-operation. That sounds like a 'good Indian'. But then there is Nehru, who obviously thinks this attitude is crazy. He seems to want to fight Hitler. He says England's difficulties aren't India's opportunity. But then he adds that India can't, because of that, be stopped from continuing her own struggle for freedom. Perhaps then, the good Indian is that ex-congress fellow, Subhas Chandra Bose who makes freedom first priority and is now in Berlin, toadying to Hitler, and broadcasting to us telling us to break our chains. Or is he Mr. Jinnah who has at last simplified the communal problem by demanding a separate state for Muslims if the Hindu-dominated Congress succeeds in getting rid of the British? Or is he one of the Indian princes who has a treaty with the British Crown that respects his sovereign rights and who doesn't intend to lose them simply because a lot of radical Indian politicians obtain control of British India? This is actually a bigger problem than I ever guessed, because the princes rule almost one-third of the whole of India's territory. And then again, should we forget all those sophisticated aspects of the problem of who is or is not a good Indian and see him as the simple peasant who is only interested in ridding himself of the burden of the local money lender and becoming entitled to the whole of whatever it is he grows? And where do the English stand in all this?

The answer is that I don't really know because out here I don't rank as one. I never meet them, except superficially in my capacity as a member of the press at the kind of public social functions that would make you in beleaguered rationed England scream with range or laughter. And then, if I speak to them, they stare at me in amazement because I talk like them. If one of them (one of the men - never one of the women) asks me how I learned to speak English so well, and I tell him, he looks astonished, almost hurt, as if I was pulling a fast one and expecting him to believe it.

One of the things I gather they can't stand at the moment is the way Americans (who aren't even in the war yet - if ever) are trying to butt in and force them to make concessions to the Indians whom of course the British look upon as their own private property. The British are cock-a-hoop that Churchill has taken over because he's the one Englishman who has always spoken out against any measure of liberal reform in the administration of the Indian Empire. His recent attempt following the defeat of the British Expeditionary Force in France to lull Indian ambitions with more vague promises of having a greater say in the running of their own country (which seems not to amount to much more than adding a few safe or acceptable Indians to the Viceroy's council) only makes the radical Indians laugh. They remember (or so my editor tells me) all the promises that were made in the Great War - a war which Congress went all out to help prosecute believing that the Crown was worth standing by because afterward the Crown would reward them by recognizing their claims to a measure of self-government. These were promises that were never fulfilled. Instead even sterner measures were taken to put down agitation and the whole sorry business of Great War promises ended in 1919 with the spectacle of the massacre in the Jallianwallah Bagh at Amritsar, when that chap General Dyer fired on a crowd of un-armed civilians who had no way of escaping and died in the hundreds. The appearance of Churchill as head of the British war cabinet (greeted by the English here with such joy) has depressed the Indians. I expect they are being emotional about it. I'd no idea Churchill's name stank to this extent. The call him the arch-imperialist. Curious how what seems right for England should be the very thing that seems wrong for the part of the Empire that Disraeli once called the brightest jewel in her crown. Liberal Indians, of course, say that Churchill has always been a realist - even an opportunist - and will be astute enough to change coat once again and make liberal concessions. As proof of this they point out the fact that members of the socialist opposition have brought into the cabinet to give the British Government a look of national solidarity.

But I wonder the outcome. I think there's no doubt that in the last twenty years - whether intentionally or not - the English have succeeded in dividing and ruling, and the kind of conversation I hear at these social functions I attend, Guides recruitment, Jumble Sales, mixed cricket matches (usually rained off and ending with a bun-fight in a series of tents invisibly marked Europeans Only and Other Races) - makes me realise the extent to which the English now seem to depend upon the divisions in Indian political opinion perpetuating their own rule at least until after the war, if not for some time beyond it. They are saying openly that it is 'no good leaving the bloody country because there's no Indian party representative enough to hand it over to.' They prefer Muslims to Hindus (because of the closer affinity that exists between God and Allah than exists between God and the Brahma), are constitutionally predisposed to Indian princes, emotionally affected by the thought of untouchables, and mad keen about the peasants who look upon any Raj as God. What they dislike is a black reflection of their own white radicalism which centuries ago led to the Magna Carta. They hate to remember that within Europe they were ever in arms against the feudal status quo, because being in arms against it out here is so very much bad form. They look upon India as a place that the came to and took over when it was disorganized, and therefore think that they can't be blamed for the fact that it is disorganized now.

But isn't two hundred years long enough to unify? They accept credit for all the improvements they've made. But can you claim credit for one without accepting the blame for the other? Who for instance, five years ago, had ever heard of the concept of Pakistan - the separate Muslim state? I can't believe that Pakistan will ever become a reality, but if it does, it will be because the English prevaricated long enough to allow a favoured religious minority to seize a political opportunity.

How this must puzzle you - that such an apparently domestic problem should take precedence in our minds over what has just happened in Europe. The English - since they are at war - call the recognition of that precedence sedition. The Americans look upon the resulting conflict as a storm in an English Teacup which the English would be wise to pacify if they're to go on drinking teak at four o'clock every afternoon (which they only did after they opened up the East commercially). But of course Americans see the closest threat to their security as coming from the Pacific side of their continent. Naturally they want a strong and unified India, so that if their potential enemies (the Japanese) ever get tough, those enemies will have to guard their back door as well as their front door.

Working on this paper has forced me to look at the world and try to make sense out of it. But after I've looked at it I still ask myself where I stand in relation to it and that is what puzzles me to know. Can you understand that, Colin? At the moment there seems to be no one country that I owe an undivided duty to. Perhaps this is really the pattern of the future. I don't know whether that encourages me or alarms me. If there's no country, what else is left but the anthropological distinction of colour? That would be a terrible conflict because the scores that there are to settle at this level are desperate. I'm not sure, though, that the conflict isn't the one that the human race deserves to undergo."

I chose this particular quotation for several reasons. First, because it is an exceptionally good encapsulation of the history of a particular moment. Of that pre-independence moment in Indian history, when the tensions of politics, economy and the struggle for independence were all fomenting, and leading towards what ultimately happened, which is the creation of the independent nation-states of India and Pakistan in 1947. But more than that, and secondly, it places the character, Hari Kumar, inside that history, showing his position in it, and the conflict he feels in allegiance and loyalty, as well as his belonging. In fact, long sections of this book are dedicated to Hari Kumar's sense of belonging or not belonging. Of all the characters in the book, I sympathize most with Hari Kumar.

The character of Hari Kumar/Harry Coomer, (a parallel of many real-life individuals), was born in India, but brought up and educated in England. Upon his father's death in England, and without any inheritance, he is forced to return to India, the country of his birth but not his culture. It is alien to him, at first, and he despises being there. He feels isolated, alone, and especially an acute sense of not belonging. Though he speaks perfect English, with an English public school accent, and was raised in English culture and society, though he feels English, he looks Indian. This disjuncture between his culture and the color of his skin puts Hari Kumar into an exceptionally difficult position in society. He is perpetually marginal. He can never truly or completely fit in with either the English or the Indians. He is explicitly excluded from British society in India, and simultaneously feels separate from and other than the Indian society he hardly knows, and has to struggle to understand.

I hope it is not read wrongly then to say that I feel sometimes like a parallel and sort of mirror of Hari Kumar. I say that I hope it is not read wrongly, for me to say this, because it is an opposite sort of situation. I come from the west going east, I am white skinned living in a brown skinned society. And in many very obvious ways this makes all the difference in the world between me and Hari Kumar. I will get to that point later. Before addressing the differences between the fictional Hari Kumar and myself, I'd like to say something about the similarities. First that, like Hari Kumar, I wish that such things as skin color could be erased. I wish that the color of my skin (which creates a first impression of me here), didn't so thoroughly define my initial interactions with everyone I meet. Though people here are frequently kind and welcoming, I still feel a kind of marginalization. A sense that no matter what I do, including learning Tamil, dressing in appropriate Indian dress, cooking and eating Indian food, I will always be foreign and other; that I can never truly belong.

But why do I seek belonging? Maybe I shouldn't wish for that at all. But the truth is, I feel that India is my country, at least as much as America is. It has been my home for almost 3 years. And, in both a symbolic way, and a real way, India has become a part of me. It is a part of who I am, and the effect it has had on me can never be erased.

As an undergraduate I read the book "Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way" by E. Valentine Daniel. In this anthropological (and semiological) study of Tamil culture, Daniel outlines one of what he considers to be the most important concepts of Tamil personhood, and that is that is the concept of substances. Inherent in this concept is that a person is affected, and even constituted by the substances they take into their body, meaning first mothers' milk, and after that, the substances of food and water, and the air that is breathed, among other things. And tied strongly to the sense of personhood is the sense of place, ones' home town, ones' village or in Tamil ஊர் (ur). A place itself has substance, the dirt, the air etc. Though my ஊர் will always be the place I was born and raised, I have also been substantially changed by this place, I have eaten this food, drank this water, and breathed this air. It has become a part of me, and me of it. And part of me wants to claim this place, especially Tamil Nadu, as my place.

This brings me back to the other problem. I said "claim" this place. By "claim" I do not mean a sense of ownership, as in the colonial or imperial sense. The problem is that I cannot pretend that the colonial history of India does not exist. Though I have no desire to dominate or rule, I am (and always will be) placed in the category of the colonizer. The color of my skin, and the nation of my birth put me into that category. Now America never colonized India, but it was a colony, it was in its own way another outpost of the British Empire.

Because of this history of rule and domination, of dividing and conquering, of manipulating and exploiting, between my (supposed) country/civilization (America/the "West"), and this country/civlization (India/the "East"), I will never truly belong. Though I say my supposed country/civilization, because if I could, I would make it otherwise. If I could choose my belonging, I would rather not count myself amongst the rulers, conquerors, manipulators and exploiters.

I would prefer to count myself among the Hari Kumars, and the Mahatmas, than among the Churchills and Dyers.

I truly and genuinely hate this history of domination and exploitation. At an intellectual level it fascinates me to study it, to read this as history, and to try to understand why and how it came to pass. But at an emotional level, it makes me sick. The arbitrariness and gruesomeness, the cruelty and humiliation, the exercise of power for purely economic gain, all of these things disgust me. So, to the extent that there are good things about American culture, about the society I was raised in, I suppose I don't mind claiming it as my own. But to the extent to which being American/"western" associates me with unjust domination of other people around the globe, historically, and presently, I conscientiously object. I choose another allegiance, another nation, or even better, no nation all.

And though my position is not exactly like that of Hari Kumar, I feel that his (fictional) position in that historical moment, and my not-so-fictional position in this moment, are very much similar. And so I echo Hari Kumar's closing thoughts in the letter to his friend: "At the moment there seems to be no one country that I owe an undivided duty to."

Home sweet home

2009-12-05T17:57:00.010+05:30

So my apartment is what I affectionately refer to as "bug central station", which is what it is because there are no screens on the windows or doors. It's also kind of dingy looking, and definitely needs a fresh coat of paint. Leaking water has caused the paint to discolor (a lot) and previous residents have spilled things, written things, and generally left walls in serious need of new paint.

A june bug that found its way into my apartment and was beating itself to death by running repeatedly into the wall.

The place is cheap, and I've asked my landlord if he'd be willing to paint the walls, but he didn't exactly jump on the idea. The rent is Rs.1000/month plus an extra Rs. 50 for the water bill, and the electric is paid separately, but adds up to about Rs. 150 every 3 months. So for about Rs.1100, which varies between about $20 and $25/per month depending on the exchange rate, I have one living room/bedroom, a kitchen, shower and toilet.

Even if it were a fancier place (and I have lived in some), with fresher coats of paint... most places in Tamil Nadu do not have screens. Most locals don't have screens, and windows are not built with screens in mind. So even if it were a nicer place, it'd still be bug central.

It would also be nice if there was a door between the kitchen and bathroom, and even between the bedroom and kitchen/bathroom... but those things are not absolutely necessary. The toilet has a door, but the shower has no door, no curtain. It is separated from the kitchen by a partition wall, with a wide doorway. I hang a curtain between the main room and the kitchen/bathroom, on the rare occasion that I have guests, so that the kitchen becomes a changing room, and they can shower in privacy.

To me this is perfectly functional. It's definitely not beautiful. Though I think the coat of paint is really the main aesthetic issue. The floor is an ugly sort of tile, reminiscent of the hallway floor in my elementary school, with bits of rock embedded in a brown matrix. But it is easy to clean, doesn't show the dirt and dust which naturally comes in the windows, and stays pretty cool even in the hottest part of the year.

My room

When my friend visited from the US last year, she said "Wow, Gwen, you're really roughing it." But I guess I don't see that as the case. It's a house, it's solid, with a roof over my head, and indoor plumbing. Many people here in Tamil Nadu live in thatched/plastered huts, with dirt floors, that they frequently plaster with a wash of cow dung, or sometimes lime plaster. They have outdoor toilets, and outdoor bathing areas. These are frequently screened off by means of more thatched walls, and sometimes not roofed over. Some places, until recently were not wired for electricity. Now THAT would be roughing it.

Camping, sleeping inside a cramped tent, on hard ground, and having to walk in the woods to go to the bathroom, that's also roughing it.

Maybe it's my own attitude adjustment... my own lowering of expectations. But I don't consider my home to be "roughing it". Yes, it is lacking some conveniences. It would be nice to have a "geyser", which is what they call a hot water heater for the shower. It would be nice to have screens on the windows, and fresh paint on the walls. But none of those things are really necessary.

For hot water for bathing (only really needed in December anyway when it gets a bit chilly - and by chilly I mean 65) I use an electric coil heater, which is immersed in a bucket of water, and I take a "bucket bath" instead of a shower. The rest of the year the water is pleasant enough, whether it's hot in the middle of the day (as the water tank on the roof gets hot from the sun) or cools over night, it's just fine for me.

It might be nice to have a western style toilet too, but that's mainly because it's more difficult to read while squatting...

All these things are adjustments I made before coming to this apartment, so living with a squat toilet, no instant hot water, or screens on the windows, those were all things I'd already experienced.

The kitchen

When I came to Thanjavur in January, it was hard to find a place, and I wanted to get to work immediately. I wanted to get down to the business of what I came to do. So I didn't want to spend weeks searching for an apartment. I'm sure if I had, I probably could have found something perhaps cleaner, or more aesthetically pleasing. Perhaps a western toilet or water heater. But at the time, I had gone from a hotel which was expensive, to a hostel with 10 beds in a room, equally dingy, and without privacy, and I hadn't found anything else for a while. I was thrilled to find a place of my own. However small and dingy-looking, it has everything I need.

If I were going to stay in Thanjavur longer, I'd search again for a nicer place. But I'm not. I'm leaving for fieldwork in January, and I'm hoping to spend only two or three more months here after that. For that, it's simply not worth the trouble of searching, or the trouble of packing everything up and moving.

Lizards are my friends. There are probably a dozen or more living in my apartment, and they eat all the insects, especially mosquitoes.

This is the entire set of photos on Flickr. Be warned it contains pictures of a very large cockroach... victim to my instant cockroach killing spray.

What to Pack for India

2009-11-28T13:37:00.026+05:30

I have some friends coming to India for the first time in just a couple of weeks, and they're asking some good questions about what to pack. I have a fair amount of experience in the packing department, having come and gone from India about 10 times since 2001, so in addition to answering their specific questions, I thought it might be useful to post something here for everyone.

I'll try to break it down by what, for convenience sake, you might want on a short trip, and what not to bring you're going to be staying long enough that it's pointless to bring a year supply of X because it is available if you know where to look.

DISCLAIMER: Please keep in mind most of my knowledge and experience is specific to South India, and in particular Tamil Nadu, and things might be, in fact probably are, different in the North. Also, this is my personal advice based on experience, I am NOT a medical professional, and you should always consult your doctor on anything medical-related before traveling abroad.

1. Toiletries etc.

For the traveler on a short trip, go ahead and bring a complete set of all your preferred toiletries, your own soap, shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, deodorant etc. You should probably also pack a small first aid kit. Most of these things are available here in India, though not always in the brands or forms you might prefer. But if you're going to tour around and try to see the sights, you don't want to waste your time shopping to find toothpaste, so you might as well bring your own.

For someone coming to India to stay a long time, you can actually get almost everything you would want here including familiar American brands. This is totally different than it was in 2001 when I first started coming to India. Now you can get all sorts of brands of shampoo AND conditioner (used to be you couldn't get conditioner anywhere).

A couple of items that are hard to find, and especially people are picky about what they use: DEODORANT, especially stick deodorant, and also surprisingly, any kind of herbal deodorant. There are tons of sprays, usually heavily scented. Occasionally in a store with imports you can find some brands like men's Speedstick, but if there is something in particular you use, you may want to bring a big supply of it.

For women: Tampons. Pads are widely available, and for some reason, OB are becoming more available, but if you prefer anything else, you should probably bring it. Also, yeast infection treatments.

Some things are harder to find: Cloth band-aids. And band-aids in shapes other than long strips. I bring a big supply of the "finger" band-aids, or off brand varieties of the same. A good, well stocked first aid kit is always a good idea.

In terms of medical stuff: Some of the most familiar medications are hard to find, or seem to have different names. I bring Ibuprofen, Pepto-bismol (or generic), Immodium (or generic) and Sudafed not "PE"(the real pseudophedrine that you have to sign for works best for me). These items (or compounds) may be available here, but not under ANY name I've ever asked for at a "medical shop". Which, by the way is what they're called here at least in the South, if you're ever in need of one. There are of course different versions and equivalents of the kinds of things listed above: Paracetemol is the same as Tylenol, several things available for upset stomach, and various cold remedies. My reason for bringing the American versions is that when I'm sick, I'm also comforted by knowing what I'm taking, and knowing that it'll work, because I've taken it before.

You probably don't need to pay for a full prescription of something like Ciprofloxacin which doctors sometimes recommend getting in advance. It's a very good, very strong antibiotic, and it is great if you have a bad bout of diarrhea, dysentery, or a urinary tract infection, among other things. However, it IS available in India, for much much cheaper than it is in the U.S., so if you should need it, you can get it easily.

One last piece of advice from experience: If you do see a doctor while in India, and are prescribed something you don't recognize, it's probably a good idea to look it up online, and see what it is before taking it. If you have any drug allergies, this is especially important, because it may be something you're allergic to under another name. Even if you don't have drug allergies, it's a good idea to know what it is before you take it. This is a (sad and funny) story for another post, but lets just say all doctors are not created equal. Some in India are among the best in the world, and others are complete hacks. A good motto in this department is "Trust but verify".

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2. Mosquito Related

To take prophylactic anti-malarial drugs, or not to take prophylactic anti-malarial drugs, that is the question!! This is my two-cents. Again, I am not a Medical professional, please consult your doctor.

Malaria is an extremely serious disease , it can kill you, or be very, very unpleasant, it causes brain swelling among other things. However, Malaria is not the only mosquito-borne illness you have to worry about in India. There is also Dengue, Chikungunya, and rarely reported West Nile Virus. These last three are viruses, and Malaria is a parasite, so any medicinal prophylaxis that works for Malaria will not prevent becoming infected with one or more of the viruses.

If you are going on a short trip to India, short meaning less than a month, and if you are going to be in warmer more tropical regions (i.e. not Ladakh, Kashmir, or any part of the North in winter), you MAY want to take one of the anti-malarial medications out there. There are two main types, the quinines, and the antibiotics. Both varieties usually require you to start a week before departing, and stay on the medication two weeks after returning home. Get a prescription from your doctor, and make sure the know exactly where you are traveling, because there are specific drug-resistant strains of malaria in some regions.

Both categories of anti-malarial prophylactic drugs have side effects, and these vary person to person. Some of the serious side effects of the Quinine varieties (taken weekly), such as Chloroquine, Mefloquine, and Malarone, have reported psychotic side effects, including violent dreams, suicidal urges, and rarely psychotic breakdowns. I know of at least one student on a study abroad program who had such a breakdown, and had to be sent home.

The most common anti-biotic drug prescribed as an anti-malarial is Doxycycline. It is taken daily, and must be taken with food. Over the long term it is known to harm the stomach, and can cause increased sensitivity to the sun, making serious sunburn a risk if you are on Doxycycline. Since it is also an anti-biotic, the risk of yeast infection for women is also higher. It doesn't have the same risks of psychological effects as the other categories of drugs, but I did experience severe stomach pain after about a month of taking Doxycycline.

My personal opinion is that if you are going to be in India for longer than a month or so, it is not ideal to take any of the anti-malarial prophylactics, because of the side effects, and generally having such strong chemicals in your body for such a long time. In addition, since these drugs do NOT prevent Dengue, Chikungunya, or West Nile Virus, your best bet is to take lots of preventive measures to avoid being bitten by mosquitos at all.

I use a pump-spray (not aerosol) with deet, such as Off Family Care (or generic). I use it on a daily basis, and I especially spray the skin of my feet and ankles, the cloth of my pants around my ankles, and my exposed arms and neck. With maybe one or two sprays aimed at the clothes covering my mid-section. Even during the monsoon season in Tamil Nadu, which is a pretty mosquito-y season, this is enough that I haven't been bitten at all in the 3 weeks since I have arrived, except on the one day I forgot to put it on.

I also sleep under a mosquito net. I use a portable variety, which hangs from a line strung between two points in the wall or a single point in the ceiling. (This is way easier to set up than the 4-point variety.) It is light and pretty easy to pack, but if I was going from hotel room to hotel room on a daily basis I wouldn't want to set it up over and over again.

As for what's available here, they use a cream mosquito repellent applied to the skin called Odomos, and several varieties of plug-in diffusers which diffuse a chemical into the air that pretty much keeps the mosquitoes out of the room into which it is plugged. The biggest brands are Good Knight and All Out, and I recommend the liquid variety over the pads. You can take one of these with you from hotel room to hotel room, and plug it in as soon as you arrive (though most hotels will provide one often they use the pads, which I find are less effective). It works great overnight, even with the windows open. Some varieties are wall plugs that have no cord, just plug into the wall socket, others have a cord of about a meter, which I think is better for a bigger room, since it means you can position the diffuser sort of near the middle, or nearer to your bed, in case the wall socket is far off in a corner.

I always carry a spray bottle, tube, or wipes of some sort of repellent in my bag with me at all times. If you find yourself in an especially mosquito-y area, apply more!

Since I have known people to get both Dengue and Chikungunya, and both were quite unpleasant diseases, with sometimes long-lasting effects of joint pain, etc., I decided my plan was not to take any of the anti-malarial medications, which I think may give a false sense of security about being bitten by mosquitoes, and instead I am very careful not to get bitten at all, if at all possible. I am here for a year, for a shorter trip, I might consider taking one of the drugs.

And on to happier subjects...

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3. Guide books

I personally prefer the Lonely Planet guide books, as I have found their balance of information about sights/sites, and information about food, lodging, banks and other facilities to be very useful.

Lonely Planet offers several guides to India, including an all-India guide, and several specific guides to different regions. If you're going to travel in South India alone, I highly recommend their South India Guide. It's got more detail, and a different set of accommodations than the main guide. It also gets you "off the beaten path" a bit more than the main guide.

I also hear good things about the Rough Guide to India. Especially that they give more in-depth historical and contextual information about sites, compared to Lonely Planet. However their listings of other information, such as accomodations, food, etc., are sparse.

One important thing to note is that the different guides cater to different crowds, and the Lonely Planet guide tends to cater to, and be used by the young, international, and to some degree "hippie" crowd. While the Frommer's India tends to be upscale in their selection of accomodations and the prices are more expensive than most young people can afford, so the Frommer's guide works better for more "grown-up" crowds.

I suggest going to a physical bookstore to peruse the various options, so that you can see for yourself how they are organized and what kinds of information they present. This is the best way to find what works for you.

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4. Clothing

Clothing is particularly an issue for women traveling India. This is not a particularly good thing, but it is a fact of life. What is considered culturally appropriate or acceptable varies significantly from place to place, and especially between major urban centers and other smaller cities, towns and rural areas.

Men have it pretty easy. As long as they don't wear short-shorts, they are probably fine almost anywhere. For entry into a temple or mosque they may be expected to wear long pants.

Despite what Bollywood movies show, very few women go out in public in any context, urban or rural, wearing a tank top. Some varieties of sleeveless tops, those with higher necks, going to the shoulder joint, with no bra visible under the arm MAY be acceptable in cities like Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore and Chennai, however, the are still not common. In general short sleeves are required.

If you're coming for a short trip as a woman, you may not want to purchase all new Indian clothes on arrival, though who knows, maybe you will. If you do pack from home, it should be appropriate to the time of year and climate (look it up based on when and where you're going.) It does actually get cold in the North in winter, and VERY VERY hot in the south, especially in March, April, and May.

Still, despite the heat, shorts, tank tops, and skirts above the ankle are a bad idea. You will probably be considered to be a "loose woman" (akin to a prostitute or porn-star) wearing a tank top and shorts. You will almost certainly get pinched and groped, cat-called and harassed. I hate to say that you will be "asking for it" but in this particular cultural context, that's exactly how it's viewed. The Indian perception of western sexuality is already one that is extraordinarily promiscuous (mainly perpetuated by Hollywood movies and pornography), and if you want to avoid being labeled as such from the get-go, you should consider wearing clothes as modest or traditional as possible. This conception of promiscuity permeates pretty much the whole society, so not only does dressing respectably get you fewer gropes from men, it also gets you more respect from women. And more than that, if you wear Indian styles of clothes, they appreciate the gesture as respect for their culture, and will generally say so. It's valued as much as, or more than, learning a few words of the language.

The two major traditional kinds of Indian dress for women are sarees and salwar kameez.

To get Indian clothing you can buy "ready-made" Salwar Kameez, or have it stitched by a tailor. Many shops sell "cloth sets" which include 3 matching pieces of material which an then be stitched into a top, pants, and shawl. You can also get saree blouses and under-skirts stitched (ready-made really isn't a very good idea for a saree blouse). The shawl, or "dupatta" part of a salwar set is an essential item, it is intended to cover your breasts, and even though it may be completely transparent fabric, it is still considered "modest". Ready-made stuff is sometimes not well sized for larger Americans and foreigners, so you may actually need to get things stitched by a tailor, if you are a bigger or taller woman. Even if you are not, having things tailored to fit you, just right in all dimensions, and to your personal specifications is just a nice feeling.

Modesty is an extraordinarily important aspect of dress for women, and western clothes, are usually de-facto immodest, even if they are baggy or cover a lot of skin. If you're coming with your own western clothes to India, I highly recommend bringing or buying a shawl or shawls to cover your upper body, and occasionally your head. (To visit a mosque you will be absolutely required to cover your head.) Even for daily wear in many cities and towns, you will find that "modest", appropriate, and especially traditional Indian styles of dress will get you friendlier treatment, and less harassment.

For visiting sacred sites, temples, mosques, etc., be aware that even more strict rules on modesty apply for both men and women. If you plan to visit such places, keep this in mind. You may not be allowed inside without appropriate clothing.

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5. Assorted Useful Gadgets

The most useful gadget I own is my headlamp. I have a Black Diamond Cosmo headlamp. I use it when the power goes out, and when I want to read a book in bed at night, inside the mosquito netting, and don't want to have to get in and out of the netting again to turn off the light. It's comfortable, it doesn't require a hand like a normal flashlight, and it has two different settings for bright spotlight and wider more diffuse light. I find it is an indispensable part of my life. The power goes out frequently, either in scheduled power outages, or randomly due to various glitches in the system. I have packed a suitcase by the light of a headlamp, prepared dinner, and a wide variety of other tasks. I suppose I could live without it, but I wouldn't want to. You could bring a flashlight, but I think that would be a much less practical choice.

If you are bringing any electrical devices, laptops, cameras, anything with a plug, or rechargeable batteries you may will also need plug converters. If your item (such as a laptop) has an AC adapter, all you need to do is convert the type of plug to the Indian plug. If it does not (such as hair dryers, electric razors) you will need a voltage converter. Checked the specs on the item you are carrying, and do some research. These are available in India, at some "electrical shops" but they can be hard to find, and it's usually easier to get one or two in the U.S.

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6. Gifts to bring

Gifts are a good idea to bring, especially if you will be staying in anyone's home, or visiting friends or friends of friends. It's not 100% expected that you will bring gifts, but it is definitely appreciated.

Ideally you want to bring gifts that people can't get themselves in India, or that are prohibitively expensive here. This is (unfortunately?) an ever shrinking list of things, as global consumer capitalism continues to expand, and new markets are opened in India, more and more things become available here, and are no longer special or gift-worthy.

One good category is chocolates, especially fancy boxes of chocolates or chocolate bars.

Also location specific t-shirts and other paraphenelia like key-chains, mugs etc., from a home university or home town. This can get expensive if you have a lot of gifts to give, but it is definitely something you can't get anywhere else.

Lastly, anything home-made, any home-made clothing, cards, paper, art, food, etc., made by you or your family. Home-made gifts are frequently brought by Indian families to their counter-parts in the U.S., and it works both ways. Some non-commercially packaged foodstuffs may be a problem in customs, so pack it well.

It used to be that pens were something everyone asked for, and now there are plenty of good quality pens widely available. However, it is still "traditional" in small rural villages (at least in the South) for kids to ask for "school pen, school pen". So if you think you might want to just give a way a load of regular ballpoint pens, get a couple packs. You'll be immediately popular with all the kids in the village.

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Wow, that was long! I hope you find it useful. If you have any questions, critiques, or anything to add, please leave a comment.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-26T19:15:00.002+05:30

Thanksgiving is not a holiday celebrated here in India, but in the spirit of the holiday, I did thank a lot of Indians.

For your holiday enjoyment some of turkeys I've seen lately:

Happy Turkey Day!!

A Village Visit

2009-11-23T19:19:00.005+05:30

Yesterday I went to the village of Poondi, about 20 km from Thanjavur town. I went because my friend R., who is a Ph.D. student in the Tamil University here invited me to visit her and see her family home, and her village. I went and ate lunch with her and her mother, and we also took a walk around the whole village, 4 parallel main streets, about 3 blocks long. I have a lot of pictures, especially of the wildlife, and not so wildlife, of which I'll post some here and more on flickr.

This trip made me think of two important things: one, when someone starts telling me the story of their life's tragedy, especially a dead husband or father, or other close family member, I have no idea how to react, or why they're telling me their story.

The second thing is, everyone assumes I'm rich. And yes, in a way, simply by virtue of being American (or from any other "developed" country), one has more money, and general resources, including education and cultural capital with which to affect things. But I am a student, I have lived on a crappy graduate student stipend, or without employment, scraping by, for many years now. Even though the amount of money I make as a teaching assistant sounds like a lot in dollars, and even more converted into rupees, I always try to tell people how much things cost. How rent takes up a third to half of my salary, other basic costs, food, transportation, clothes, etc, take up most of the rest. I have a little expendable income for going out to the movies, or going out to dinner with friends, but only because I live very cheaply in everything else.

So when people look at me like I'm rich, and expect that I have infinite amounts of money to give away, it's difficult to convey that it's not really the case. And even though many Indians, even wealthy Indians don't give beggars money, they sometimes give me a dirty look, if I don't give a beggar change. Suddenly I'm the bad person, for not giving my spare change to someone begging. And I do give to beggars. Most recently, I literally didn't have any change. Other times, I've made a decision based on the number of beggars in a particular bus stand or other location. I was once in the unfortunate situation where I decided to give a small pack of biscuits to a child beggar of about 7 or 8 years old. I was in a bus stand, and that child produced 2 more, who also got biscuits, and they produced 4 more, and so on until a mob of shouting, pushing, reaching and grabbing children had surrounded me. Generosity is hard. And I believe more in supporting development programs, education, etc, than simply giving out food or a few rupees. It's that whole "teach a person to fish" thing.

So when my friend R's mother told me about how her husband died, my first thought was whether or not she was going to ask for money. I feel bad about that. I feel terrible, actually, but the issue of my "wealth" relative to others' misfortune is an issue that I face every single day. Anyway, I should have realized that money isn't the issue, since I've already hired R., who is a very smart young woman, to be my research assistant, to help me re-write bags and labels for artifacts, and enter data into spreadsheets, and a variety of other things. I already paid her, for her first weeks' earnings, and I'm sure I'll continue to have work for her for a while.

But if money isn't the reason why R's mother was telling me about her husband's death, and all the troubles that followed it, then I don't know what is. Is it sympathy? If so, I don't know if I'm expressing my sympathy in ways that are culturally appropriate, or even enough. Perhaps my exclamations of "Oh that's terrible" (in Tamil), and "Oh no, that is awful, I'm so sorry" should be more dramatic, more emphatic (as seen in Tamil soap operas)? I don't really know. I've spent a lot of time here in Tamil Nadu, in this culture, and there are still a lot of things I don't have figured out. This feels like an important one. I really should know how to respond appropriately, when someone tells me that a family member has died.

In any case, aside from what felt to me like an awkward moment, because I didn't know how to react to a widow telling me her difficulties, I had a wonderful time visiting the village. I should start asking friends who I know better, and who understand some of the cultural differences, about the appropriate way and level of response to these things.

As a final note, I realized a couple of the reasons I don't like to take and post pictures of ordinary city streets in Thanjavur and other cities... One it's so chaotic and densely filled with images, angles, lines, colors, that it's almost impossible to frame a good looking shot. Second, it is dirty, dusty, muddy, sometimes covered with garbage, and generally not very attractive. I guess my concept of photography is that it should show things that are aesthetically pleasing, and a lot of the really ordinary city streets, I don't find aesthetically pleasing... I should work on that though. Maybe this weekend I'll take a walk around town, and shoot a lot of pictures, just to see what comes out.

Staying Connected

2009-11-21T15:03:00.012+05:30

Staying connected to friends at home, and around the world has changed A LOT since I first started coming to India in 2001. Back in the day I had to create a Yahoo mail account (I know, ancient!), because my college email didn't offer webmail, only POP mail (even more ancient!), and if I wanted to be able to access email in India, it was going to have to be webmail.

At that time, international phone rates, both from the U.S. and from India to the U.S. were unbelievably expensive. I think it was nearly 50 cents a minute on ATT from the U.S., and maybe the equivalent of 25 cents from India to the U.S.

In India, internet cafes were few and far between, and the computers inside them were dinosaurs. These days net cafes are more common, and the computers are still dinosaurs, but not the same ones as before. Maybe the current computers date to about 2001.

In any case, in 2001, I don't think the idea of having home internet had really sprung up yet in India, though I could be wrong. I didn't spend a lot of time in peoples' homes, at least not ones who could have afforded such a thing. I was in Rajasthan for a month, working on an excavation at the site of Gilund, and the only homes I really visited were those of the villagers of Gilund village. The village had only recently been wired to the grid to receive electricity. What I remember most about those homes is the copious amounts of kheer I ate while we went from house to house on Eid. Yum! But off topic...

Back to the point! Home internet, including broadband by DSL is much more common now. It is, however, a HUGE pain to get set up (something I blogged about before). Now, the both the technology and tools of staying in touch have changed radically. There are so many options, more and better, and far cheaper than before.

Here is a list of what the tools I currently use to keep in touch. If you're using the internet (and you must be if you're reading this), you have probably heard of these things:
Gmail
Facebook
Instant messanger (Adium - which combines AIM, MSN, Yahoo, G-Chat, and many more).
Skype
(A fairly short list, and yet still somehow it's an overwhelming amount of in-touch-ness!)

In order to connect to the internet I use a USB cellular modem, which (though a bit slow) allows me to connect to the internet anywhere there is cell service. I have mine through Tata Indicom (primarily because I found that they are the only brand with a modem that is compatible with Mac OS). It took some working still, to get it running with the Mac, and the Tata people had no idea how to help me. I found this PDF guide, which, though outdated, was still clear enough to show me what to do. I currently pay Rs. 849/month for unlimited time and data, on a pre-paid basis. This works out to between $17 and $20/month.

Probably the neatest new set of tools for communication is the system I found (through a lot of internet research) of having a local American phone number that forwards to my Indian cell number. I won't give out my phone number here... but I will give away the secret that means that American friends and family can call me for basically free (no one pays long distance anymore after cell phones), and I pay 1.8 cents/min to forward the call to my Indian phone.

For a basic version of this service, and purely incoming calls, you can just use LocalPhone.com. They are the company that does the basic job, giving you a local US number which friends can call, and they set up the forwarding to the Indian (or other international) phone number. They charge 1.8 cents to India, different rates to other countries around the world. It takes a few days to set up, and you have to maintain a pre-paid balance on the site. You have to request a local phone number, but you can request where it is local to, and most places/area codes seem covered. Once you have the incoming number, you can forward to an international number for cheap, cheap, cheap.

My Indian cell phone, which is a pre-paid SIM from Airtel, has free incoming calls, at least in the state of Tamil Nadu, which is considered my local network, and is where I spend most of my time.

I have enhanced this with the addition of Google Voice. Google voice is a service that used to be called "Grand Central" which allowed you to create a single incoming phone number, and forward calls to any other number you had, home, work, cell, etc. However, presently, Google Voice only works forwarding to American phone numbers. The pros of using Google Voice are:

I have the same US phone number now as when was in the US, now it just forwards to my Indian phone.
I can use Google Voice - the website, to call any phone in America, and it calls my Indian cell first (making it an incoming call, and therefore free as far as the Indian cell service is concerned), and then dialing the American number. So I can make outgoing calls (using the internet) for the same 1.8 cent rate I get for incoming calls.
If I don't manage to get to the phone in time, or if it's off, I get voicemail! My Indian pre-paid cell service doesn't come with voicemail. And more than just voicemail, it sends me a transcript of the voicemail, in email. Now, granted, those transcripts are frequently VASTLY wrong, since their voice recognition software isn't very good yet, but it's still a neat service and the audio clip of the voice mail is right there to listen to as well. If you do happen to call me and get my Google Voice voicemail, please speak clearly... :)

The cons are:

Google Voice doesn't just forward directly to an international phone. (Though they indicate in future they are planning to make that available).
I have to have a computer and an internet connection in order to make an outgoing call for the same 1.8 cent rate.

If anyone knows of any other neat or new methods/technologies of staying in touch across vast oceans and distances, let me know, I'm always open to new things!

Note: The Google Voice service is currently available by invitation only. I don't have any invites, and I got my own by signing up on their website.

Wildlife and not-so-wild-life of Tamil Nadu

2009-11-19T21:38:00.005+05:30

I've seen some amazing wildlife here in Tamil Nadu, and some other not-so-wild life. I decided one way to show "what India is like", is to show some of the life that I have seen.

Not so wild:

The puppy seems to belong to one of the stray dogs on the Tamil University campus. I haven't seen him with his mom, but he's been sleeping and hanging out by the front steps of the canteen where I eat lunch every day. Today, when I picked him up, he seemed to be healthy, if a bit scared and out of sorts. It was probably the first time he'd been picked up. People here in South India like dogs better than they do in the North, where they kick them hard, and throw rocks at them to go away. But they tend not to view them as something cuddly, that you'd actually pick up and pet and such. This was one cuddly and adorable puppy, and once he got used to it, he seemed to enjoy being held.

Wild:

The owl was just sitting on the ledge, during the daytime, at the university, and appeared to be resting/sleeping. It didn't pay much attention to me taking pictures, and I got pretty close to it. It has an amazing speckle to its belly, and I have no idea what kind of owl it is. But it's one of the neatest animal encounters I have had here yet.

IAWAWSA: International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia

2009-11-17T20:19:00.009+05:30

In September, on a whim, I decided to start a new organization. The International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia -- or IAWAWSA for short. It wasn't an idea that I spent a very long time thinking about explicitly before I decided to try to make it a reality.

I came up with the idea, when, after a series of scares relating to my permissions and visa to do research in India, I found myself contacting and relying on a knowledge and support network of my fellow women archaeologists working in South Asia. I also realized, that in addition to my advisor and faculty at my own university, I had in some capacity for many years relied on my own network of friends and adviser-ly figures, who were, either by accident or design, primarily women. The thought suddenly occurred to me that maybe we should have a formal association.

Once the thought struck, it also stuck in my brain. I couldn't stop thinking about what an organization might be like, and what it could do. It was such an exciting idea, I couldn't stop thinking about it, so I decided to just start it up, first with a Facebook group (an easy way to get a bunch of people to belong), and then by creating a website.

As for what the organization can do, and what I hope it will do, the goals are as follows:

To be a support and information network of women scholars at all stages of their career. To help encourage women to pursue archaeology in South Asia, and to empower them do so, by creating mentoring relationships, and giving support.
To provide a forum for discussing the issues that women face in conducting archaeological research in South Asia.
To promote research (especially by women) in archaeology in South Asia by:
a) Providing forums to discuss research, such as meetings, workshops, conferences, and publications.
b) To foster international collaboration between scholars from around the world with interests in the archeology of South Asia, especially to bridge the divide between the countries of South Asia, and foreigners who come from countries outside South Asia.
c) Offering grants and fellowships to scholars, to support research, travel, and writing, which we hope will also have the effect of empowering women to continue to pursue archaeology and archaeological research.

It turns out, that creating an organization such as the one I outlined above, with goals as grand in scale, as the ones outlined above, takes a LOT of work.

I am just now beginning the process of filing for non-profit/tax exempt status for IAWAWSA under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue code. This is an unbelievable amount of work, and I'm just beginning to realize how much it's going to take to get to the point where I can even *begin* to raise the funds that I want, in order to do the things I want to do.

It's incredibly daunting, but perhaps that's the point the IRS is trying to make. They don't want to make it easy for organizations that may have a lot of money at some point in the future, do anything to evade taxes, if they don't have to.

Forms galore to be filled in, in addition to a lot of "supporting documents". To name a few, we need "articles of incorporation", by-laws, statements regarding our policies for non-discrimination, a "narrative description of the activities, past, present, and future" of the organization, policies for employment, policies for nominating officers, board members, trustees. We need policies for how we will obtain funding, and for what we will do with it. We need policies stating what criteria we will use in giving out grants and funding. The list goes on and on. And the truth is, I'm a) not a lawyer, b) have no clue how to write most of this stuff, and c) have no idea how to lay out clearly and effectively such things as what criteria we should use to select to whom we should award grants and fellowships.

In addition, I need to fund-raise the $400 filing fee to become a non-profit, and yet, seem somehow prohibited from fund-raising without yet being a non-profit organization. And all this immense amount of work that goes into the filing, is just the beginning. Once we have the letter granting exemption under the 510(c)(3) code, then the REAL work will begin, to write grant proposals and solicit donations, to raise funds for the organization DO all the things I hope it will some day do.

As much as this organization is becoming a method of sometimes procrastinating the other "real" work I have to do, which is my own research and writing towards the completion of my Ph.D., working on developing IAWAWSA is always simultaneously a source of motivation to do my own work. I can hardly be the spearhead/founder/director of an organization for women archaeologists, if I can't successfully become one myself. So each time I sit down and work on the organization, I also end up feeling more motivated to get my own work done. So that in the future, not only can I continue to pursue my own research interests, but I can help others pursue their goals as well.

(Note: In a future post I will discuss some of the reasons why this organization is needed. Why, especially, in a period in which the status of women seems better than it's ever been, this organization still has something to contribute. I will present some of my anthropological/sociological observations on gender in academia, especially in academia in Indian institutions, and the prospects of women in India and other countries in South Asia who aspire to do archaeology.)

My present location and the local wild life

2009-11-15T12:52:00.006+05:30

This is where I am presently located:

View Larger Map

This is a very strange and large insect I cannot identify that has been buzzing around my apartment banging into walls:

This is a goat who got up on the wall to eat the leaves of the mango tree in the yard:

Monsoon Mice and a Philosophy of Hardship

2009-11-14T15:57:00.006+05:30

The rain is pouring so hard outside I can hardly hear. The power just went out, but I am using laptop battery and a USB cellular modem, so I can just continue to type away. Handy.

I arrived yesterday back in Thanjavur where I spent 4 months between March and June of this year, and before that 10 months in 2007. I kept my apartment here, paid 2 months advance rent to the landlord, and paid another 2 months rent through my friend S. when I decided to postpone my departure from the US. It's easy to do when the rent is Rs. 1000/month, which comes to between $20 and $25 per month depending on the exchange rate.

The place is kind of shabby, but it's home. When I arrived yesterday, I discovered a mouse (or mice) had built a nest behind where I had leaned my mattress against a wall. They had chewed through the plastic cover of the mattress and chewed through other things like paper towels, newspaper, and dragged other assorted garbage into the pile. The entire place was filled with dust, dirt, mouse droppings, leaves blown in and spider webs. I should have expected something like this. I expected it to be dirty, but the mouse issue added a lot of ick to the process of cleaning up.

The rain sort of seeps in through the ceiling, though it does not drip, the ceiling gets damp. In heavy rain, parts of the roof in the kitchen seem to drip. Everything is so damp, when I went to light a candle, the matches would hardly strike, or they'd strike and go out because the wood is damp. The leaking roof/ceiling is an issue, but it's not the end of the world. I sort of think it's part and parcel of the territory, and living in such cheap accommodations. I could probably spend twice as much money per month, and have ceilings that weren't damp. But I guess this seems like a fair exchange.

The power is still out and though I conveniently still have my laptop and internet connection, I inconveniently can't use my electric stove, electric rice cooker or electric kettle. When I was here for my last long research stint, I got a canister of cooking gas for cooking, but getting it was a huge hassle, so since I came back last time for only a few months, I decided not to bother with that and bought the electric stove. Maybe now I'll get one again. Or at least see about getting it. It'd be nice to cook dinner even when the power's out.

There are few generalizations I can draw about India. Whenever anyone asks "What's India like?", my best answer is to say it is so diverse that it covers the entire spectrum, in any sense you can think of. That is the only generalization I can make, that it's almost impossible to make any sort of generalized statement at all, and be even reasonably accurate.

But there is one other somewhat generalizable thing in my experience: India is hard. It's a hard place to be, hard place to live, hard place to get things done. It's hard, even given what you might call the relative advantage of being from the US, of having greater resources relative to most of the population. Getting home phone and broadband DSL internet connection was so hard last time, this time I decided not to bother. The USB cellular connection is handy in its own ways, but still frustrating. Both the pre-paid and post-paid SIM cards I was using the last time I was here expired, and I have to make a new application for a "new connection" complete with a passport sized photograph, photocopy of my rental agreement, and other "proofs" of local residence.

I have to re-register with the police, a process that takes almost a full day every time, with forms and official form-filler-outers, who type in the forms on ancient, pre-independence typewriters with carbon copy paper between sheets. I will then photocopy those forms in quadruplicate, submit multiple passport-sized photographs, and submit them to the police to rubber stamp, even though I was just here, and still have the old documents, and the only thing that's changed is the visa number and expiration date.

But here's the thing. As much as I complain about these difficulties. As much as I despise the bureaucracy, the multiplicates and the passport sized photographs, I enjoy the challenge. I enjoy the challenge that every day brings. I like the feeling that I've accomplished something when I manage to negotiate my way through labyrinthine bureaucratic processes, and come out the other side with an internet connection, or a cooking gas cylinder. I feel like I've won.

And when I think about how easy it is to do everything in the US... How quickly paperwork is dealt with, and forms submitted electronically, and how gas just comes to your house, through a pipe, along with water, electricity, and all the other amenities... I wonder if maybe it's all too easy.

Of course, after a while I will come to miss living day-to-day without the challenge of power-outages, without the bureaucracy. It does get exhausting after a while. I still wonder, if the ease with which things come to people in America, if the lack of challenge and struggle in daily life isn't actually the Achilles heel of American culture. I don't know what to say, really, about doomsday scenarios -- books and movies supply them aplenty. But I can't help but notice that people who are accustomed to more challenge, more hardship in daily life than your average middle class American seem to cope with it better, even when they're confronted by the bigger, more insurmountable challenges the world has to offer.

On Arrival

2009-11-10T19:19:00.004+05:30

I just arrived back in India for a full year. The flight was just over an hour late, but it hardly seemed to make any difference. I can't even mentally calculate the amount of time I was in transit. I have to do it written down. So lets see, 5.5 hrs from LA to Chicago, 1.5 hrs waiting in Chicago, 7.5 hrs from Chicago to Frankfurt, 5 hours waiting in Frankfurt airport, a late departure from Frankfurt, waiting on the plane about 45 minutes because someone decided they felt sick and didn't want to go to India and their baggage had to be unloaded. Then another 8.5 hours (which I think turned out to be 9 hrs) in the air. That adds up to just over 29 hours of travel time. Not to mention going through customs, collecting my luggage, and the cab ride to the hotel… UGH.

Enough of that. I mainly wanted to recount the sort of stream of thoughts that proceeded through my brain immediately after arriving.

1. I have finally arrived in the land of coconut chutney. It's not the land of milk and honey, but I think I might prefer coconut chutney. Also tomato chutney, and coriander chutney.

2. I have so many visas for India in my passport the guy at the immigration desk can't find the correct one. It's the last page, and as he paged through, I watched his look of consternation to compare the visa number listed on the form with the paper visa in my passport. I knew this would happen. "It's on the last page" I told him in Tamil, and he found it, stamped it, and smiled. He didn't look the least bit surprised that I spoke Tamil, which surprised me. Usually people hear me speak Tamil and are shocked. I'm so used to that response; I get surprised when they're not.

3. More surprises. I only saw one cow in the street on the way to the hotel.

4. The taxi driver drove surprisingly slowly and cautiously. And as I noticed that he wasn't the fastest car on the road, that he was, in fact, not roaring through the city, I wondered if my standards have changed. Would I have thought it was scary, if this was my first trip? Would I have thought he was driving fast or recklessly? It seems that the roads and the driving was very frightening at first. But what used to scare me, and what used to be jarringly different about India is hard to even remember now.

It was (and still kind of is) hard to conceive of the next 12 months of my life here in India. I have a lot I want and need to accomplish. It seems different than so many of my other trips. Longer at one stretch than ever before, but at the same time, I feel so much more able to cope with that.

I'm not dealing with any particular culture shock. The only thing I really have to deal with is jetlag.

I still feel some anxiety and trepidation about how this whole thing will work out. But I also feel pretty confident that it will be a good and productive year. I guess that is how it goes. This is what I signed up for. This is my life. And this funding for a full year is a great opportunity that I'm grateful for.

Cultural Homogeneity and Its Discontents

2009-08-18T05:50:00.004+05:30

"The problem is not technology itself; the Sioux Indians did not stop being Sioux when they gave up the bow and arrow, any more than Americans stopped being American when they gave up the horse and buggy. It's not change, or technology, that threatens the integrity of the ethnosphere, it is power. The crude faith of domination. And whenever you look around the world, you realize, that these are not cultures destined to fade away, these are dynamic living peoples being driven out of existence by identifiable forces that are beyond their capacity to adapt to."

I watched this video, a talk by Wade Davis, and even though it didn't tell me anything factually, that I didn't already know, it was still thought-provoking, and moving, nonetheless. He tells of the loss of cultural knowledge, the death of over 50% of the worlds' languages, the ever-increasing homogenization of people and culture around the globe. I knew all that, at least in a factual sense. But he still manages to bring a new perspective to the issue, which I appreciate greatly.

Wade Davis started out as a graduate student in ethnobotany, looking for the plant poison or compound used to make zombies. This lead him to a life of living with indigenous cultures, tribal and ethnic groups all over the world, and writing about it for National Geographic.

He has coined the term "ethnosphere" as an analog to the concept of the "biosphere" the sum total of the world's biological, or in this case, cultural diversity. As I listened to his talk, I was impressed by his passion for the subject, for the knowledge of these indigenous cultures all over the world, and his sadness at their loss.

He makes many compelling arguments for why we should care about indigenous people and the cultural knowledge that they carry. (Just watch the video to hear what he has to say.) But he didn't make one argument that seems obvious to me. Maybe it's an idea he thinks is too obvious, maybe he has written or talked about it elsewhere. It is the concept, as in the "biosphere" and population genetics, that diversity is adaptive; that diversity is advantageous.

To have a wide and diverse "ethnosphere" is to have a greater body of knowledge, ideas, and ways of thinking for our species to draw from. Just as decreased genetic diversity in a population of any organism creates inherent risks for that organism to survive new diseases and adapt to new conditions, decreased cultural diversity of humanity creates inherent risks for our long-term survival as well.

What are the forces that are killing indigenous cultures (and sometimes indigenous people)? It is the villain in so many modern stories: global consumer capitalism. What Wade Davis calls simply, "power". Are we helpless to stop it? I hope not.

And I hope he's right, that through stories like those in National Geographic and elsewhere, or by any means at all really, that people everywhere come to value cultural diversity, and not degrade it. It's not even about individual human lives, which also have value. It is about the sum total of culture, of knowledge, and belief, and world-view, of logics and ways of seeing the world, that are being lost. And that is greater than any individual. As it has always been, culture is greater than the sum of it's parts (the sum of its people). But when you reduce the sum of the parts to zero, there is nothing left of culture either.

Brahmagiri

2009-03-02T19:12:00.008+05:30

Brahmagiri is considered one of the most important archaeological sites in South India, primarily for it's position in the history of south Indian archaeology as the site which defined the sequence and chronology from the late Neolithic, through the Iron Age to the Early Historic period (Wheeler 1948). It was excavated by Sir Mortimer Wheeler in 1947, and ultimately became one of the most important and best known sites in the region.

View North-East from the slopes of Brahmagiri hill just above the Asokan Edict.

He chose to excavate there, based on the previous work of Dr. M.H. Krishna, hoping that it would show a long depth of chronology, as well as allow some connection between the ceramic sequence/chronology with the Asokan rock edicts, and the Russet Coated Painted Ware, or Andhra Ware, already cross dated with roman coins to the first centuries AD at Arikamedu (Wheeler 1946; Casal 1949; Begley 1996).

Since the site was dug long before radiocarbon dating, or any other method of secure absolute chronology, Wheeler presumed that the known date of the edicts would help him date the rest of the occupation. Though he managed to associate the rock edict with the black-and-red ware in the megalithic burials, and the same black-and-red ware in the habitation area, he vastly underestimated the amount of time that was represented by this ceramic type.

Recent re-analysis by Dr. Kathleen Morrison has shown that the site's chronology is indeed very deep, and that much of Wheeler's analysis of the ceramic sequence turns out to be problematic (Morrison 2005). Despite the early work done at Brahmagiri, it's prominence in archaeological writings on South India, and the recent work by Dr. Morrison, much research remains to be done.

The Asokan Rock Edict at Brahmagiri. Now enclosed in a concrete structure.

Close up of the Brahmi writing of the Asokan edict.
For the full set of pictures go here.

References:
Begley, V. (1996) Ancient Port of Arikamedu: New Excavations and Researches 1989-1992. École Française D'Extreme-Orient, Pondicherry.

Casal, J. M. (1949) Fouilles de Virampatnam-Arikamedu. Imprimerie Nationale, Paris.

Morrison, K. D. (2005) Brahamagiri Revisited: a Re-analysis of the South Indian Sequence. In South Asian Archaeology 2001, edited by C. Jarrige, & V. Lefèvre, Editions Recherche sur les Civilisations ADPF, Paris.

Wheeler, R. E. M., Ghosh, M. A., & Deva, K. (1946) Arikamedu - An Indo-Roman trading station on the east coast of India. Ancient India, 2: 17-124.

Wheeler, R. E. M. (1948) Brahmagiri and Chandravalli 1947: Megalithic and Other Cultures in the Chitaldrug District, Mysore State. Ancient India, 4: 181-310.

Brains....

2008-11-23T03:25:00.002+05:30

Some interesting stuff in science news recently...

A new Homo erectus fossil shows that they probably had wide hips for babies with big heads.

Our brains are actually physically changed by learning... such that even if we forget, it's much easier to re-learn.

When Can I Buy the Pro-Bacterial soap?

2008-11-19T04:16:00.003+05:30

So we are all suddenly being told (by ads on TV) to buy yogurt, because it's pro-biotic. And as much as I hate these marketing campaigns, they're right.

And even though we sort of knew that the human body had loads of healthy bacteria that help our bodies function properly, doctors kept prescribing anti-biotic drugs, and using anti-bacterial soap. No one seemed to notice the contradiction.

Perhaps we have vilified bacteria unfairly in the public sphere.

Based on some cool new research on how to prevent pneumonia induced by intubation/artificial respiration in the hospital, I think I see a paradigm shift comin' round the bend. I mean a really MAJOR paradigm shift, in the western approach to medicine and health in general.

We'll be washing, shampooing and brushing our teeth with our favorite co-evolved bacteria.

Maybe this means we'll be able to say goodbye to potentially pandemic-causing anti-biotic resistant diseases, not to mention the environmental destruction caused by anti-biotics and anti-bacterial soaps and cleaners. (This research has been pioneered by Dr. Rolf Halden, and you can check out his CV and massive list of publications with all the data to back it up.)

So basically this is the lesson to be learned: stop using anti-bacterial soaps and houshold products. Go back to regular old soap, it will do the job. And stop taking anti-biotics as much as possible. Hopefully, it won't be too long before we have pro-biotic soaps, sprays, powders, mouthwash, etc. Really, we should have known all along. The only way to fight the bugs, was with the mutualistic, co-evolved bugs we've been carrying along with us for all these millenia.

P.S. Thanks to Zach for the link to the NIH.

If you really love her... say it with tequila.

2008-11-19T01:30:00.005+05:30

Ok, so I haven't blogged in a while. But I have been listening, reading and absorbing a random assortment of stuff, and I wanted to have a place (with more flexibility than del.icio.us) to link to things I enjoyed. Like a minimetafilter.

So here goes:

If anyone ever decides to buy me a diamond ring this is the only kind I would accept.
(New advertising tagline: Tequila can get you into her pants... permanently.)

Science Fiction

2008-09-30T03:35:00.002+05:30

I recently picked up an old issue of Wired magazine, and was browsing it while eating lunch. Inside I found an article that stated a point I have been trying to make to friends and family for years: science fiction is the most philosophical and intellectually stimulating literature out there.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this. It's not that other kinds of fiction aren't interesting and great. But even when they're not sci-fi I still prefer books that don't deal entirely with what we perceive as reality.

I loved China Miéville's series that started with Perdido Street Station, and culminates in The Iron Council. It's not standard sci-fi. Miéville himself calls it weird fiction. Others have called it steampunk. But it's not the genre label that matters. What it does for the reader is pose a "what if" question, and explore the world that is parallel but different, in which something scientifically or historically false in our world is true in that world.

If you've ever had a shred of curiousity, and I hope we all do, you know that the what-ifs in the world are pretty much infinite. And exploring the social, cultural, scientific, philosophical and moral implications of alternate truths is FAR more interesting to me, than stories of the reality I live in now.

Science fiction often poses questions about how a new science or technology will influence the future. Novels by Stephen King and Michael Crichton often explore alternate possibilities of the present. In some ways, the books of China Miéville are about something in the past, though the reality there is so different, it's hard to draw an exact parallel.

Some what-ifs have had too much play in sci-fi. Like "what if, because of some natural disaster or environmental degradation, the human species had to leave earth and colonize other planets?" and "what if there are alien species out there, with designs on conquering earth?" But as sci-fi grows, new questions can be asked. Some of these questions and potential truths may lie in our near future. Such as: "What if we can create machines out of nano-particles? what would we do with them? how would they be used?" (This story about nano technology is NSFW.)

Science fiction is the future. Not just because authors usually write about it, but because if literature is going to continue to be interesting and challenging, it should also question everything we think we know.

Sometimes the future really happens. And someday we'll each have a jetpack. :P

Do Not Question: A poem by Shāʾistah Ḥabīb

2008-04-27T01:25:00.003+05:30

Do Not Question

Our era

Is holding our mutilated images in its hands,

The procession is passing through a huge market place.

Wave after wave,

Holding hands,

Wearing human costumes,

How satisfied are the people

With the provisions they receive

For permitting others to abuse their mothers.

Keep walking,

Great gains are expected of this, later on.

Switch off the thoughts

Arising in your minds.

Do not use too much electricity,

Save some light for the black days.

Keep walking, comrade--

Why do you, like an obstinate child,

Wish to pluck the juicy mulberry branch?

Trample -- move on,

Lest the vultures who are ahead of us

Distribute our provisions among themselves,

As there is one piece of bread

And a thousand mouths.

Anyway, keep walking,

Striking, knocking down.

Something more than bread is waiting for us.

We are the fortunate ones,

At last being awaited by someone.

Will there be a cool spring of water over there?

No no -- remain silent -- do not question

Or you'll be the loser,

Keep walking --

Who tumbled?

Don't look back.

How am I affiliated to this column of people?

I don't have to think.

Where should I seek sanctuary in this deluge?

Mad, insane.

The thesis of this search of affiliations

Is in the last show-case of the museum,

So that the future generations may go through it

And prepare notes on history.

With the scotch tape of wealth,

Connect each generation to the next.

All other clues are meaningless-- be silent--

Do not irritate others -- don't question

Or you'll be the loser.

Translated from Urdu by Yasmin Hameed.

(From: Pakistani Literature, Vol. 4, No. 1, 1995, p.505-6).

The author, Shāʾistah Ḥabīb (anglicized as Shaista Habib), died in 2004. An obituary and biography of her life can be found here.

Italy and after

2007-09-03T16:39:00.000+05:30

Oy vey! It's been a long time. I know I should have posted sooner. A number of things have prevented me from doing that. I apologize for the long delay. So I'll try to give an overview of my last few months.

I went to the European Association of South Asian Archaeologists conference in Ravenna, Italy at the beginning of July. The conference was great, and I presented my paper "Social Difference and Craft Production in Iron Age Tamil Nadu: Preliminary Results from Kodumanal" on the second day with a full room in attendance. My fellow grad students from Madison also presented, and everyone did a great job. I also met a lot of other great researchers, faculty, and grad students in other institutions. Though the cost of the trip was pretty high, the return on the investment was very high.

After the end of the conference, my friend and fellow grad student, Katie and I had made plans to travel for just over a week along with Katie's friend Sangeeta. So we started from Ravenna and took the train to Venice, where we stayed on a smaller island nearby called The Lido. The Lido was once a beach resort for the rich and famous. Now it's a somewhat less glorious place but with a lovely beach, and the cost of hotel rooms was much cheaper than in Venice proper. We each purchased the three-day boat pass for $50, which was ridiculous, but less ridiculous than paying for each individual boat ride. The boats are like the bus system in Manhattan, and there really is no other way to get around. We explored Venice, though we didn't see every single sight to be seen. I got some nice pictures in Venice. I'll put a few here, but the full set can be seen at Flickr.

After Venice, we took the train to Florence (Firenze), and from Firenze to Siena for a day. From Firenze we returned to Bologna where we first arrived, and flew home. The best parts of the trip involved a lot of wine and/or sangria, and are thus a bit fuzzy in my memory. The little local bar on the corner by the Hostel outside Bologna was fantastic. They were truly the local flavor. The glasses of wine also only cost 1 euro, and were filled to the brim.

The Duomo Cathedral in Firenze

The sights of Italy were just spectacular, and so was the food. For the most part anyway. There were a few disappointments on the food front. But the last meal, a "Ravioli alla fantasie della chef" was superb. It was a creamy sun dried tomato sauce with walnuts and pancetta and lots of parmesan, and probably some other ingredients I couldn't identify. I knew I was taking a risk, letting the chef's fantasy take my dinner, but it was spectacular.

Everything about Italy was so great, and the trip so short, that all I can really conclude is that I need to go back. We didn't go to Rome, (too far, too much to pack in to a short trip), nor did we see any of the other spectacular archaeological sites or monuments that dot the country. Someday I'll have to plan for myself an archaeological tour of Italy.

However, I did see a really interesting exhibit on the Etruscan period, though all the signs were in Italian, and I couldn't get much about who really the Etruscans were, or what was going on in terms of politics or society at that time. They made some really cool artifacts though:

After returning from Italy I got back to the business of research. This was interrupted by the death of my hard drive, though getting it replaced under the AppleCare protection plan was amazingly easy, considering it's India. I mean I had to go to Chennai on the overnight train, and contact an Apple authorized repair place, but they were fast, efficient and nice. All my research was backed up... so a hassle, but not a disaster.

I also conducted some experimental work with a local Potter near by to Thanjavur, in which we attempted a couple of different methods for producing the so called "classic Black and Red Ware", that is the most common type of pottery found in the Iron Age. Except for some cracking it came out pretty well:

After that I went to Pondicherry to meet with professors Rajan and Subbarayalu, and proceeded to Coimbatore District to visit other archaeological sites of the Iron Age, in the region around Kodumanal where my research is currently based. I found several interesting sites I hope to return to, and saw some lovely country-side. Here's a couple of examples:

I'll be going out soon to visit more sites, and I'll do my best to post again soon.

Cultural Encounter of the Day: Columbus Was From India

2007-06-11T20:00:00.000+05:30

I feel like I should have been writing these kinds of little vignettes of my cultural encounters all along. So here is hopefully the first of many. I truly enjoy the new perspectives I gain in these encounters.

Today I went to the post office to post a package back to the U.S. to a friend of mine who spent a year living in India, and he wanted a new pair of Indian style sandals and some strings for the Veena (a South Indian instrument often confused with the Sitar). Mailing a package to the U.S. is made more complicated because you can't mail anything without having it wrapped in white cloth, stitched closed, and sealed with red wax. But first you have to show the clerk the contents of the package, so they can see that it's not harmful or illegal.

I went inside the post office and began asking around about mailing an international package. There is no particular counter or person who is designated to handle these things. But someone always comes to help. I showed the contents of my package and asked about where to get the white cloth and stitching done. I was directed across the street, and when I enquired about how much it should cost, the post office guy escorted me across the street to the shop of miscellany (a rocking horse, clay dolls, safety pins, hair pins, envelopes, and also re-weaving the seats of 'caned' style chairs, and stitching parcels in white cloth). He warned the guy that I know Tamil, and I came to study so he should treat me fairly, not cheat me, and speak Tamil with me.

So I sat around in the shop and watched him measure out the cloth, and start stitching. Pretty soon he was making conversation. Did I come to study Tamil? Do I know Tamil well? What is my native country? Do I like India or America better? Do I like English or Tamil better? (All asked in Tamil, of course. This is my translation).

After a pause I was asked a question I've not been asked before, in India: 'How did America get it's name?' I said there was a guy named Amerigo who came from Italy, and he came very early on in the history of the place. It is named after him. I mentioned that he was not the first European to reach that continent. That was Christopher Columbus, who came from Spain.

In response, the man stitching my friend's package said, "Ah, yes. Christopher Columbus. He is my countryman. He went all over the world searching for God. That is how he discovered so many new places. But he is Indian. My countryman."

Oh. I said. Really? I didn't know that.

Expectations, Great and Otherwise

2007-05-24T00:41:00.001+05:30

I figured out long ago, (or thought I had figured out) that having high expectations was a surefire way to be disappointed. Having low expectations on the other hand, was a pretty good way to be pleasantly surprised. Here I am, living in Thanjavur, working on my research, and I've been at this for three months now. I thought I had the expectations under control, but let me say at the outset that I had it all wrong.

I was optimistic about the wrong things, and pessimistic about the wrong things. And I did an incredible job of disappointing myself on both counts.

I should say too, that I am typically a glass half-full kind of person, so when I create pessimistic expectations it's usually something I do consciously to avoid disappointment later on. But here's the catch: If I get too pessimistic about things, I get so depressed as a result of those low expectations that I begin the process of a self-fulfilling prophecy. This definitely happened in the process of my research. I decided, at the outset, that the project was probably going to turn out horribly, and that the results would be worthless. I thought by telling myself this that I would end up later happily surprised if I got any interesting or valuable results. Instead, I got so caught up in the idea that it was all going to be awful, I could barely motivate myself to get out of bed in the morning to do the research. And I was so distracted by my own negative vibes, I wasn't even paying attention to the work I was doing.

Strangely, I did allow some optimism into my world. I thought I could allow myself to be optimistic about simple things, like how quickly I could get things done, about how far along I would be by now. These expectations were also a horrible idea. Now of course, with the classic disappointment of expectations too high, I am frustrated with how slow things have been going, and how little progress I've made in three months.

Only now, after some serious re-evaluation of the situation at hand, and of my own mental state and expectations do I realize I had it all wrong.

I should have been pessimistic about the simple things. Expected it to take forever to get up and running, expected that in 3 months I would make ridiculously little progress. I realize too, I needed to be optimistic about the big picture. I need to have some faith in the project in the long term. I need to believe (even if I am disappointed later) that it is going to produce interesting, valuable, and meaningful results.

In the end, I may be disappointed by having expectations set too high for the project as a whole. But I should be prepared to accept that THEN and not NOW. I walked into this project with a sense of defeat already hanging over my head, and that was not the way to begin.

Now, I know better. In 3 months I have made as much progress as I could have under the circumstances, with all the limitations involved. And in another 3 months it will be the same. And now, for no good reason, except that I NEED to, I believe that this project will work. That something will come of it. I don't know what, and it probably won't be what I expected when I started. But, I have faith.

Alien-Celebrity status

2007-04-02T23:07:00.000+05:30

Now I know what it feels like to be Jennifer Aniston, if Jennifer Aniston was also a purple-ish green color with antennae and an extra set of arms and legs. Or at least I imagine that my experience and the alien version of Jennifer Aniston have something in common. For one, I get stared at everywhere I go. Not everyone stares, but most do, at least the first time they see me. I think of my skin as part of the normal range of human colors, but because in India foreigners are relatively scarce, it sometimes feels like I must be purple and green. They discuss it amongst themselves. "Look how white she is, how pale..." And they tell me directly, "Your skin is such a light color. It's very beautiful." Sometimes they comment on things like tan lines, if any are showing, or the presence of small brown moles. But by far my most common experience is being called "vellai-kari" which just means white woman, by large crowds of children. They scream, and point, and tell their friends to look. "Hey look, over there, hey-da, it's a white woman!" If the children are too young to understand that they should be pointing at me and calling out "vellai-kari" their mothers usually whisper it to them, and then tell them to say "ta-ta" as in "bye". From my cultural perspective it seems like they just want me to go away. I'm sure there is some other logic involved, and maybe I will start asking why they say that. In any case, my presence pretty much never goes unremarked.

I should add here that this is in no way a judgment of people, but rather my perspective on my experiences. I understand that they are curious, and in their situation I'm sure I would be too. I know I have done similar things to foreigners in the U.S., on occasion. Even knowing that, it still makes me uncomfortable. One reason it is so uncomfortable is the fact that it comes across as reverse racism. Some people go on to tell me how ugly their own skin tone is. Another problem is that I understand what they're saying. So even when they think they can talk about me without my knowing, I comprehend what they are saying. This happened to another friend of mine as well. She had somewhat of an acne problem. Some women on the bus noticed, and began discussing in Tamil how ugly they thought she was. Even when she told them she could understand they kept talking about her. It was very hurtful to her to hear people discussing that. Anyway, please don't take this as a negative judgment of the culture, but rather as an account of my frustrations with the limits of my own understanding.

I posted before here about the amazing pattern of similarity between people in Tamil Nadu and the questions they inevitably ask me when they meet me for the first time. "What are you doing here?" "What are you studying?" "How old are you?" "Are you married?" These are the most common questions, and I was asked again today, by relatively small children. I guess you could say kinship matters. After being told that I am not married, people usually ask either: "Why not?" or "Would you consider marrying an Indian?" And today, on top of being asked by a group of small children, I was also asked by an adult man, who proceeded to give me a full 10 minute discourse on why I should marry an Indian. It was all in Tamil, and I didn't understand every word, but one of his first reasons was that I have studied and learned Tamil, and in India this will cause men to be interested in me, but in America, men will not care that I have learned Tamil, and then my learning Tamil will have been a waste. In addition, in India, I have the positive feature of being foreign, and thus being more attractive to men, while in America, I am just like all the other women, and will have a much harder time finding a husband. He made several other points as well, but I didn't understand them as clearly. There was something to do with the central government (of India) giving some kind of benefits to my (future) children, and something that sounded like the idea of them (my future children) having dual citizenship, and access to the amenities of the west. It was an interesting conversation to say the least.

All in all it was a pretty average day. I was stared at almost constantly in public, got asked personal questions that I don't really like answering, got lectured on how to live my life by a total stranger, and was generally treated as an object rather than a person. I know this summary makes it seem pretty horrible, and honestly, it feels that way sometimes. My sister has now coined the term cultural depression. It came about because I happened to mention that I didn't leave the house all weekend. I didn't go out on either Saturday or Sunday for anything. She said, "So, you're depressed." And I said no I'm not in general, just sometimes I don't feel like facing the world outside." And she said, "So, it's situational depression." I said, "No it's cultural. It's not really depression. It's just that sometimes I feel like I can't face the fact that it's India outside my door." So she concluded, "It's cultural depression." And I'd have to say that's pretty accurate. I've been in India a long time now, and before coming to Thanjavur, I felt like I was pretty well adjusted to the situation. Over the culture shock, and adapted to the various differences in the daily life. But Thanjavur is different in that it lacks the same kind of community of American friends that I had in Madurai. Without at least a few people to hang around and just be my own cultural self, I guess I do begin to feel a little depressed. Partly, it's due to the objectification, which in itself isn't SO horrible, but is rather frustrating because it takes the place of culturally satisfying interactions.

Here is my (psycho-cultural) analysis of the situation: I, as an extrovert, and generally as a human being, depend on receiving what I perceive to be positive feedback from people around me. I would say the simplest form is the American "friendly smile". The smile, that as a part of American facial expressions means, "you're ok," "I like you," or simply "hello". But without any Americans (or other westerners) around, and when most of my interactions involve people stereotyping and objectifying me, I don't get the quotient of positive feedback that reinforces my sense of self worth. Not only do I not receive this culturally conditioned form of psychological stimulant, I have to restrain myself from showing that friendly smile to a large portion of the population here. The largest portion that I have to refrain from smiling at are men, because, what in America is considered a friendly smile, in India is viewed as interest or an invitation. Further, giving people, men or women, that friendly smile is what most often precipitates them feeling comfortable enough to ask me the long list of personal questions I'd rather not answer.

Certainly I am not trying to argue against having cross-cultural friendships. They can be wonderful things. Though they often require a large expenditure of energy in order to come to an understanding about the simplest things. One positive aspect of these cross-cultural friendships for me is the practice I get in speaking Tamil. For instance tonight, we were discussing William Shakespeare, about whom my 16 year old friend, the younger sister in this family, is studying in school. She said they were reading the stories of Shakespeare, and in her experience they were all comedies. I said, "No, there are comedies, tragedies and histories." She asked about the most famous example of a tragedy, and I immediately said Romeo and Juliet. Then she and her mother asked me to summarize the story of Romeo and Juliet in Tamil. So I did. It was certainly a challenge, but I think I did alright.

I am certainly happy to have made a few friends, however hard it may be to communicate and understand each other. I just hope I get accustomed to this new version of the Indian cultural experience, and get over my "cultural depression" soon. It's no good for me to be here, if I'm constantly wishing I were somewhere else. I wish I had something more positive to say in conclusion, but I think it will have to wait for another post. So stay tuned...

Oh the places I've been...

2007-03-28T16:57:00.000+05:30

Well, Since I've been back on the Fulbright, I've done a bit of travelling, and I thought I would share some pictures of my trips here. First I went to Varkala beach in Kerala with some friends. They are leaving India, and it was a great way to say goodbye.

The beach at Varkala

Jill and her new friend Jonny from Wales

Sandy looking very serene

I was also feeling very chill.

Then I went to the Fulbright Conference in Aurangabad, and with my fellow conference attendees went to the Ajanta caves. The caves are amazing. I had been before, but it was still astoundingly beautiful. It was also nice to see that they're doing a good job maintaining and improving the caves, and continuing the conservation work on the frescoes. Of course they wouldn't allow flash photography, so my pictures came out mostly blurry and dark. But here are a few of the neat ones.

Buddha sculpture with an eerie green glow.

Buddha with a double shadow

Me outside the caves at Ajanta.

I look really tan. :)

As always, you can see more of my pictures at: Flickr

F***ing Patriarchy

2007-03-25T19:09:00.000+05:30

As I have mentioned in the past, India has a thing for bureaucracy. And I'm not a fan. I'm even less of a fan of bureaucracy when it intersects with patriarchy.

Yesterday I went to the BSNL (Bharat Sancham Nigam Limited) state run telephone company office to sign up for a home land line. The main purpose of this land line is so that I can get broadband/DSL at home. However I can't even fill out an application for broadband until I have a phone line connected. So I went in the afternoon and picked up the forms. When I got home to fill them out I was dismayed to find that the second line, below my own name is the name of my father/husband. I contemplated leaving it blank, but I realized that when I turned the form in they would make me fill it in. So I wrote my father's name. It's pointless, right? What reason or purpose could this have? It seems like such a symptom of the patriarchal logic that doesn't consider me a whole person without reference to a male figure like a father or husband.

The third sheet form of the three stapled together was a form to indicated a beneficiary in case of death, who would receive my telephone line or the rights to my 500 rupee deposit. I left this entire form blank, since I assumed it was not, as the Indians say, compulsory. But apparently it is, and when I went to submit my application they made me fill this form out too. I protested saying I don't have anyone who I want to get my telephone line, or 500 rupees, and I don't plan on dying. But they insisted by saying, "Just put your father's name and address."

Of course for pragmatic purposes I did it. But it has been bothering me ever since. I know it forms yet another instance of cultural difference that I should learn to accept. But I have been having a hard time accepting these instances of cultural dissonance. I wish relativism could do it for me, but that doesn't seem to work either.

Ah, the Travel Woes

2007-03-05T15:32:00.000+05:30

When travelling, or perhaps when doing anything in life, the things that go wrong always make the best stories to tell. No one is interested in hearing about an uneventful trip. Having been on the road a lot recently, I have surprisingly few stories to tell. Most of it was uneventful.

I started out in Lahore early one morning, and left by car to go to the border crossing with India. It took only just over an hour to get there. It took another hour to cross the border back into India. Passports were stamped, questions were asked. I got across without problem. I got to Amritsar by bus, and decided to waste my afternoon before catching the train going to a Hindi film, Guru. I got the train, and arrived in Delhi at the youth hostel at around midnight. On the flight to Chennai, seated in the row with me, was a family of four who had never flown before. They were all amazed. I and the other guy in our row had to repeatedly tell them to stay seated and keep their seat belt on while the plane was taking off. The other guy in the row, an Indian who is doing his Ph.D. in the US, started out a total stranger and ended up a friend. He does his research on space and architecture in Urban Planning in Old Delhi.

The most eventful part of my recent travels was when I arrived at the airport in Chennai at around 5pm for an 8pm flight to Delhi, that was intended to get me there in time to catch my international flight to Amsterdam and then Detroit. When I arrived in Chennai, I checked outside at the Jet Airways desk, regarding the status of the flight. When I heard the words, "Just one minute, madam" my heart sank. She came back to inform me that flight had been cancelled. In fact it was cancelled two days previous. "Didn't anyone contact you?", She asked. No. No one contacted me. "We had re-booked you on a flight earlier today." But no one TOLD ME that! Ok, so what do I do now? I wondered.

I have to say Jet Airways, at least the staff at Chennai airport was very helpful. They offered to put me on another airlines flight, leaving at approximately the same time the Jet Airways flight was supposed to. They got me set up, checked in, etc. I sat down to wait. I watched with a sense of total despair as the Indian Airlines flight they had checked me into was delayed by an hour, and then two hours. I certainly wouldn't make my connection in Delhi. I felt helpless for about five minutes, and then realized there were other flights listed on the board to Delhi, on other airlines. I ran back to the Jet Airways desk, and looking desperate and out of breath explained that the flight they had put me on was now delayed and I would miss my flight. I asked if they would switch me again. They agreed. But we had to run. The next flight, with the new airline, Tata's IndiGo was about to depart. We had to get my baggage, already checked in for the Indian Airlines flight, off of a baggage truck in a loading dock area. They issued me a new boarding pass, and I ran, through security, and boarded the plane.

When we took off, and the stewardess announced that the flying time to Hyderabad was an hour and twenty minutes, I began to freak out again. First, I thought I was on the wrong flight, but then considered the more likely possibility that it wasn't a direct flight. I wondered how long we would sit in Hyderabad, and whether we would reach Delhi in time. When I got off the plane in Delhi I had 45 minutes until the departure of my international flight. I had to get my luggage, get to the international terminal 10 minutes away. I ran. I grabbed my bags, got a cab, everything with a sense of utter urgency. I must go NOW. When I got to the Delhi International Airport, they had closed the check in for the flight. It was not due to depart for another 25 minutes, but they had closed the check in desk. I had to beg the guy who was standing at the counter to let me check in for the flight. I jumped the line at customs and again at security, half-asking permission, yelling "My flight is leaving, is it okay if I just...?" and running to the front of the line.

Once I got through I realized a large portion of people in the lines were also on the same flight. But I was so relieved to be making the flight after such a long and torturous day that I can't say I cared that much.

Further, through all of this I had been carrying a painting. An original oil painting by a contemporary artist, purchased for about $100 in Mahabalipuram. It was in a PVC pipe, nicely wrapped. It made it to the US safely, through all of the running around. It was only after all that, on a flight with Jet Blue between Chicago and Jacksonville, when I checked the painting (as I had been all along), that it got lost. I watched the baggage claim go 'round and 'round in Jacksonville waiting for that PVC pipe to emerge. It never came. I went to the Jet Blue baggage office, and made a claim. I had to describe the missing item. I was told it would almost certainly be on the flight the following day. It never appeared. When I tried to contact the airline to see what they would do to settle the issue, I was told they have no liability for that rare items, antiques, etc, unique or irreplaceable items. They won't do anything. They'll keep looking. And I get nothing. Grrr....

My return flight to India was relatively uneventful. I ate my last hurrah of good sushi for a long time in the San Francisco airport. I bought raspberry vodka and tequila in the duty free in Frankfurt, and arrived, very jet lagged in Chennai.

Maybe they should make a new airline with that as the name... You know, Jet Airways, Jet Blue, Jet Lagged...

P.S. I actually have a photo of the board showing my cancelled flight, and the delayed flight to Delhi, but I can't upload it from this internet cafe. I burned a DVD backup of all my photos, and they don't have a DVD drive. I'll post it ASAP. Also, I'm sorry I haven't been posting frequently on the blog. I got an anonymous comment telling me I should post more often. I have two things to say about that. First is I have been running all over the globe. Since December I have been in the following cities: Madurai, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Cochin, Delhi, Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Lahore, Harappa, (then back through Delhi, Chennai) to Amsteram (ok, fine it was just the airport), Detroit, Chicago, Madison, (New York - airport), Jacksonville, Los Angeles, (San Francisco - airport, again), (Frankfurt - also airport), back to Chennai and then Thanjavur, again Madurai, and I'm leaving tonight for Varkala (in Kerala). I haven't had a lot of time to sit down and write a post. Second, I'm not inclined to post anonymous comments that are not particularly interesting. And especially if they're negative. I guess that's censorship. And I do feel somewhat bad about it. I don't know who you are, Anonymous, but next time, it would be nice if you gave a name.

Wedding, Punjab and Pakistan

2007-01-26T12:43:00.000+05:30

When I was invited to my friends wedding in Gurdaspur, in the northern Punjab, I thought I couldn't go, and I was regretting it. I have 5 sets of friends getting married this year, and I wasn't going to make it to any of their weddings.
Plans changed and I got to go. I was the only one of Amanda's friends who could be there, since everyone else was in the US. Only her Dad could make it from the US.
The wedding was in Gurdaspur, where Davinder, the groom is from.

Of course I don't know any Punjabi, so I didn't understand pretty much anything anyone was saying. But I had a great time anyway. The food was great, the music was loud, and the ceremony was serene and reverent.

Bride and Groom after the ceremony.

After the wedding I went to Amritsar for a day to see the Golden Temple. It is the holiest place in the Sikh faith, and a beautiful building. Built in 1577 and destroyed in 1762 by a Mughal emperor, Ahmad Shah Durani, it was rebuilt in 1802. It was attacked in 1984 and had to be restored once again. Amritsar the name of the town comes from the words "amrit sarovar" or tank of nectar, the pool of water that surrounds the building.

Golden Temple at Dusk (Amritsar, Punjab)

Going to Pakistan, I crossed the border at Wagah, which was an interesting experience. Crossing the border by foot was fascinating. Aside from the myriad of bureaucratic processes, I was reminded that the borders we have are invented, lines drawn on the landscape with big fences, and people patroling them. The dirt, the wind, the rodents, and even the people are the same on both sides. The air you breathe doesn't change.

In the case of Pakistan and India, this line is recently drawn, the fences recently built. The partition between the two is only 50 years old. In Lahore, the places I visited, the Lahore Fort, Masjid Wazir Khan, and Jehangir's Tomb, are all part of the Mughal history of the region. A shared history of Pakistan and India. And Harappa, and the rest of the Indus Valley civilization, serves to drive that point home. A shared history 10,000 years old.

Entrance to Lahore Fort.

Tile Column at the Masjid Wazir Khan (Lahore, Pakistan)

Ancient city of Harappa, conserved area (Dist. Sahiwal, Pakistan)

For more of my photos from the wedding in Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Lahore and Harappa visit my flickr site.

The Beauty of Bureacracy

2006-12-16T17:31:00.000+05:30

Nothing in life is guaranteed. We all know that. Will plans work out? Will everything we hope to achieve actually be realized? Everyone has these doubts. Or at least I know I do.

But there is one thing guaranteed in life. Bureaucracy.

I have never been some where that did not have some form of bureaucracy involve in getting there, being there, leaving or staying. Of course I am thinking of India, where I sit and write. But I can think of a million other examples from everywhere else around the world. It's hard to conceive of a world without bureaucracy. Everything from paying taxes, airline tickets, paying electricity and phone bills, to international travel, visas, and government permits.

What if every time you got on a plane or train, no one asked for a ticket. What if you paid cash, and walked away. You never had to make a reservation, no paper record was ever made? Of course it seems as though the world would fall apart. Nothing would function.

Is there a way to get rid of bureaucracy? Or at least to get rid of paperwork? What would happen if all paper transactions became entirely digital? There are of course several ways in which this could happen. At present the most likely seems to be embedded RFID chips in various forms of identification, such as passports, drivers licences and credit cards. Recently there has been a huge outcry from the technology community over the security or rather lack of security with RFID chips. Not only can individuals be tracked using RFID, but the chips themselves can be hacked to access personal information. Therefore not only is it an open floodgate for identity theft by those who know how, but also a means for pan-surveillance, a sort of 21st century version of Jeremy Bentham's Panopticon. Panopticon on Wikipedia.
Bentham's orginal Panopticon text.
Also, see this story on RFID in passports in the Washington Post.

As frustrated as I am with paperwork, paper pushing, form filling, and blue ink, I think I prefer this form. It is a human system. Because it is a human system it is slow, flawed, and frustrating. It is subject to prejudice, among other human weaknesses, but it has it's beauty too. It certainly doesn't facilitate the kind of surveillance that would come from a paperless bureaucracy based on RFID. It also means that sometime, if you have a problem, someone can fight for you, someone can intervene on your behalf, and take care of things.

Bureaucracy's greatest flaw is it's greatest beauty. The problems of cronyism and corruption, of the influence of money over bureaucracy and the hearts of the people who make up a bureaucracy make it what it is. Bureaucrats can be heartless, and unwilling to help. In some places, and for some people, the greasing of palms can be the only way to get something done. Bureaucracy is certainly in most cases, in most countries around the world, a game in which the cards are stacked against the poor.

Corruption in bureaucracy could perhaps be called the largest problem of the last 100 years. News articles abound about the disaster of Hurricane Katrina, corruption in various governments around the world, corruption in American politics. A search of the BBC News website shows more articles on the subject of corruption than the search engine can return in one go. They suggest I narrow my search.

I am not the only person in the world who wonders what the solution is, or if one can be found. It seems to me that many people think that the digital solution is the best. Perhaps mathematically that is true. It would certainly be the most efficient for time and money, since a computer (however large or small) can do the work of hundreds of (mere) humans.

But as a human, despite the flaws of other humans, I think prefer to subject myself to a human system of bureaucracy than a digitalized one. However, the fear I have is not one in which computers become self aware and take over the earth, like in the movie The Terminator.

The problem is that with digital bureaucracy is still run by humans, and the potential for a secret puppeteer is even greater than with the current human/paper system. If we don't like the idea of government wiretapping home phones, or secretly reading our email, then the idea of an more efficient, and complete record keeping system, of someone tracking your every move is not at all appealing.

If you were ever afraid of the wizard behind the curtain in The Wizard of Oz be afraid now. The secret of a digital bureaucracy is not that there is some kind of machine running the world without prejudice, rather that it will be an even more rigid system designed and run by the same flawed humans. It will be harder to get help if you need it, and whatever injustices and prejudices currently exist will only become more permanently entrenched.

Should you need to reach a representative in government, or call someone at the IRS to correct an error, you will now be routed to a call center somewhere in Asia, or perhaps on the new moon base, where the person on the other end of the line will be very friendly, and kind, and completely unable to help you.

For a fun and interesting fictional/sci-fi exploration of the idea of pervasive digital surveillance read The Traveller by John Twelve Hawks.

For a more intellectual read on the history of surveillance, bureaucracy and punishment, check out the section on panopticism Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison by Michel Foucault.

Pierced Through the Nose

2006-11-28T15:45:00.000+05:30

Ah the beauty of my new Macbook's built in iSight camera with sepia filter. I mean they almost look professionally done.

Anyway, I don't really know what came over me, when I decided I wanted to punch another whole in my body. I don't really consider myself the piercing kind. In fact, it was such a fad for so long that I resisted getting piercings precisely because I didn't want to do what everyone else was doing. In India of course, and Madurai especially this is a common thing for women, so I did end up doing what everyone else is.

I went to the doctor for the piercing after buying the jewellery, because it was recommended, and I thought it would be the most sanitary. I even told the doctor that I came to him so that it would be cleanly done, and I wouldn't get an infection. I expected him to clean my nose with alcohol, but he didn't. He wanted to give me a local anaesthetic, but I said no. I would rather feel pain than feel numb.

So I sat in a chair and he stood over me with a big hollow needle (on which he had poured some kind of disinfectant). I closed my eyes. He pushed the needle in. I thought,"Well, that didn't hurt so much". Then he tried to pull the needle back out again. It was stuck. That hurt. Then he went in again from the other side. Ouch. Finally his woman assistant pushed the jewellery through the hole. It didn't bleed much, which was good. But it sure was sore. And ironically when I got home I realized part of my nose was numb. They had poured some kind of liquid over it after piercing, which might have been a topical anaesthetic. I was annoyed because the numb part was not the part with the hole. Unfortunately the numbness stayed for about three days. Now that part of my nose is no longer numb, but it feels like someone is tickling me with a feather.

With liberal application of antibiotic ointment, so far there's no infection. Thank goodness.

I almost think I would have been better off with any old lady off the street. I'm sure they know better what they're doing than this guy.

Not to mention he proscribed me three different medications to take for two days afterwards. It was probably totally unnecessary, but because I was forced to buy them from him, and one was an antibiotic I decided to take them. After the not-so-sanitary way in which he pierced it, I thought it couldn't hurt. However, once I looked at the pills I realized I didn't know which one was which so I took all three. I hope if I have kids they aren't born with two heads or something.

Ah, India!

The Story of Pumpkin

2006-11-10T15:05:00.002+05:30

This is Pumpkin.
I first saw Pumpkin lying in a pile of garbage by the side of the road. I was not surprised. She was shivering, and her nose was inside a plastic bag. Every rib and vertebrae was visible. She was coated in filth. Once I realized the thing I was looking at in the pile of garbage was alive, and was clearly suffering from starvation, I couldn't do nothing. I have walked past suffering (in humans and animals) too many times here in India, and for some reason I could not do it one more time.

I wanted to do something, but I still wasn't sure what would be best. What can you feed a starving and suffering animal that won't harm it further? I called another American friend who had previously adopted a puppy off the street here in Madurai. The answer was biscuits and milk or water. I bought biscuits and water and went over to the dog. I didn't yet know what else I would or could do, but doing something to help felt right.

After she started eating the biscuits and water I took her out of the garbage pile. After she ate the entire package of biscuits and drank some water, I decided to take her home. I didn't know if I could keep her, but she had such enthusiasm for the food, and it seemed like she deserved to be given a chance at living, rather than die in a pile of garbage.

As I was walking home with her in my arms, it dawned on me that her shivering was not really shivering at all, but a muscle twitch that was persistent. It occurred to me that something might be wrong with her other than starvation. I called my American friend again and asked if she knew of a Veterinarian. I went to the recommended location, and found the Vet operating out of an office about 4 feet by 5 feet. I was skeptical, but it is generally true in India that people care less about animals and have fewer pets than Americans. So it was understandable. I paid the Vet 400 rupees, for which he gave her an antibiotic shot, and two vaccines, one for Rabies and one for a variety of other communicable diseases. But he also diagnosed her muscle twitches as Distemper, a viral infection, which I was not at all familiar with. He said she had a chance at recovery, although he did warn me that it is sometimes fatal. I took her home, not knowing what else to do, but try to feed her sufficiently to help her get over the virus.

I bathed her and discovered that she was barely strong enough to stand. She had difficulty it seemed, mostly because her muscles had wasted away to such an extent that they just couldn't support her for more than a few seconds. The other problem was the twitch. But she kept trying, and I deemed her "a fighter".
"She wants to live." I told my friends who questioned the decision to adopt a sick stray off the street. "She deserves the chance to live."

I bought the antibiotic tablets the Vet prescribed and Pedigree puppy chow. After the first night, in which a puddle of pee and a puddle of puppy diarrhea appeared on my floor, I decided to keep her mostly on the balcony, and outdoor space that would be easier to clean. Since she could barely get up to go bathroom off the mat she was laying on, this seemed best. I also had come to realize that I probably wouldn't be able to keep her, or take her to the US, and I should not allow either myself or her to develop too much of an attachment.

I found her on Tuesday afternoon. Halloween, and it was then that I decided to call her Pumpkin. Wednesday she seemed better, stronger, and although sad to be left alone a lot of the time. Thursday seemed even better. She was still weak, but she was eating heartily, including the scrambled egg I cooked for her.

My landlady complained that she whined a lot, but there was not much I could do. On Thursday afternoon after I went out, and found her lying in an awkward pile with her neck bent backwards. She had gotten up to go to the bathroom, and fallen down on her way back to the mat. She had been unable to get up.

Friday was worse. I fed her another scrambled egg and puppy chow in the morning, and when I found her Friday afternoon, she had vomited all the food I had given her and was lying in the puddle of her own diarrhea and had been unable to get up and move. It occurred to me then that she might not make it, and that the best thing to do might be to have her euthanized. I cried at the thought of it, but still I started thinking that might be the end result.

By Saturday morning she was having seizures, and had been unable to get up off her mat to go to the bathroom. She was having trouble breathing but was still holding on. She had vomited even the water that I gave her.

I knew it was time to let her go. She was twitching, seizing, and whining as if in pain. I decided it was time to take her to the government veterinary hospital to have her euthanized.

When we arrive at a quarter to seven in the morning, the auto driver assured me they would arrive at seven. But they didn't open until 8 and the Vet didn't come until 8:30. When he did arrive, and finally saw me and the puppy he told me they don't do that there. He claimed there was some kind of government law or regulation against it. I sort of pleaded with him, saying it was the humane thing to do. And he said something vague to the effect of "Maybe we can do something to ease her pain." I looked at him completely blankly, and he walked away.

Finally I went to find him, to ask if they couldn't or wouldn't euthanize her here, where could I go? He said, "No, No. I'll send my deputy." I looked at him blankly again, tears running down my face.

What is a deputy for a Veterinarian? In what way is he a deputy? What does that mean? So the deputy, came and told me I had to write a letter. It was all very vague, but he brought me a piece of paper and I started writing. Then the Vet came out and looked at the letter and told me it was all wrong. I had to start over. I had to address it a certain way, and give the specifics of the dog. Her name, age, sex, color, breed, etc. I looked at the Vet when he said breed, like, what do you mean "breed"? Look at her. She's a street dog. And he said: "You can put down 'local breed'." So I rewrote the letter and gave it to the Vet. He took it and waved me off in a vague direction. "Take her over there." I wandered in that direction, dog in my arms, sobbing. Finally someone pointed me to the "operating room" and had me lay her on the table. Then they told me to leave the room. When I left her, she started crying loudly and I started crying even harder.

The auto rickshaw driver was telling me "It's ok madam, don't worry." And one of the women working there, was saying to me in Tamil, "Don't cry, don't cry." And then, finally, practically shouting it, "STOP CRYING!" I tried to stop but couldn't really do it. I realized it was culturally inappropriate to display so much emotion over a dog. But there was nothing I was going to do about that.

The Vet called me over again to inform me that they would not be able to do anything with the body, that I would have to take it with me. I said ok, I don't really know where to take it, or what to do, but I will take it and I will figure something out. I said this because it seemed to be a condition of their doing this thing for me. The auto driver was there, and the Vet explained it to him too, and he said he could find someone. So then the Vet asked if I was done with the dog.

I said no. I hadn't really said goodbye. So I went back inside, and said goodbye to her. I kissed her face, and said I was sorry, and I hope she gets another chance at another and a better life. I didn't know that I believe in reincarnation, but apparently I do. She got such a bad deal in life this time, I just kept thinking I hope it gets better than this. I looked her in the eyes, and I felt that she understood. And then I left again. They forbade me to be in the room.

A few minutes later they came out and told me it was over. I went in and saw her, both sad that she was gone, and happy that she was free of the shell in which she had suffered. Her body was still for the first time. The muscle twitching that had been constantly plaguing her was gone. I collected her body in the shawl in which I had been carrying her, and lay her on the floor of the auto.

I cried the whole way home, despite the auto drivers pleas of "Don't worry, madam. It will be alright, madam."

In the neighborhood near my house we pulled over to the side of the road next to some people sitting there. The auto driver called a man over and explained that he should dispose of the body. The man made a face, but said yes. Then the drive turned to me and said, "Give him 100 rupees." So I gave him 100 rupees, and he took the body. The driver assured me he would do a good job burying it.

I got home, and my landlady asked what happened. I couldn't really explain it to her, but she gave me coffee, and asked in Tamil if I "felt". "Feel pannriyaa?", she asked.

"Yes," I said, "I feel."

The Rest of Hyderabad

2006-10-26T12:54:00.000+05:30

Here are some pictures from Hyderabad, the rest will be up on flickr.

Self Portrait in the Queen's Mosque

A view from inside Golconda Fort

Hero Stone from the Archaeology Museum in Hyderabad

Happy in Hyderabad

2006-10-23T20:15:00.000+05:30

*retyping a lost post sucks. That's all I have to say.*
The guidebook says Hyderabad is a city of contradictions. Old and new, Hindu and Muslim, rich and poor. They are right. Hyderabad is in some ways the most modern city I have been to in India yet. ATMs on every corner. Rampant consumerism, malls areas with flashing lights reminiscent of New York City. But at the same time there are things that lag behind. For one the garbage problem is still there. On the small street on which my hotel is located, there is a giant garbage pile which is generally smoldering or fully on fire. Its smoke fills the entire street. And despite signs every few feet along the walls that prohibit urination and defecation, people still regularly squat down in the gutter and just "go". The signs even threaten a 50 Rupee fine, but people regularly ignore it. There is less sexual harassment here though, which is a step forward. Some younger women wear jeans, tank tops, and tight t-shirts without being harassed. So that's great. On the other hand many women also wear Purdah, which the guide book claims is mostly to avoid harassment. I'm not certain that they're right, but it certainly makes for visual contradictions to see women in tank tops and jeans, and women covered head to toe in draping black fabric.
One of the contradictions, Hindu and Muslim definitely has a traumatic history which is being relieved even today. The clashes took place decades ago, but the animosities between Hindus and Muslims living in close contact are still evident. On the bus today I saw an "heated conversation", you might call it, between a Hindu man and a Muslim man over who had the right to sit in the seat. But so far as I could tell it was really not about the seat at all, but rather the expression of pent up anger and frustration. I guess if shouting and arguments on the bus are the manifestation of these hostilities it's better than the communal rioting that took place here in the past.
I did have one good "inter-cultural" experience. Yesterday, when coming back from the Laad Bazaar and Charminder, I caught an auto with a Muslim auto driver. Initially he was talking to me in Hindi and very broken English about how my god and his god are all one Allah. And I said Yes. But mostly I didn't understand a word he said. Then I said something to the effect of "I don't know Hindi" in Tamil, and he answered me in Tamil. It turns out he is Tamil, and has been living in Hyderabad for the past 20 years. He converted to Islam 25 years ago, and moved to Hyerabad, married a Hindi speaking woman and has 5 children. He converted to Islam from Hinduism, and was very sincerely enthusiastic about his religion. So he starts asking if I have read the Koran, and I said No. Then he asks me if I will read it, and I said Yes. Finally I promised him I would read the Koran (something I should do anyway) and he was very pleased. Then he started asking me about marriage. A common line of questioning. I told him I am not married yet, don't know when I will be, or to whom, and my parents will not arrange it for me. So then he told me I should marry an Indian Muslim and convert to Islam. I said something to the effect of "Maybe, you never know what will happen." And he was very happy about this too. By the time we arrived at my hotel he was calling me his younger sister and offering to arrange my marriage. I declined that offer. Then he offered to send me a copy of the Koran, and I told him he could do that, I would certainly read it. He wanted my phone number which I declined to give, but gave the Institutes address so he can mail me a copy of the Koran. Then he told me not to pay him for the ride.
If he does send me a copy of the Koran (in English) I really will read it. As I think many Americans (or at least the liberal ones) are now thinking, I need to learn more about Islam and understand it better if the world is going to become a better place, with less hatred and more understanding.
On another topic completely, yesterday I went to the Archaeology Museum here in Hyderabad, and saw their very lovely collection of Bidriware, Chinese pottery, Hindu sculpture, and bits and pieces of Buddhist stupas. While there I was wondering around the courtyard and saw an office with a sign that said NO ENTRY, but the walls were lined with books. So I poked my head in the door and said "Are you the archaeologists?" and the woman sitting there said yes. She turned out to be Dr. Suguna Sharma, an archaeologist who was working on textiles and patterns. So we talked for a little while and had tea, and she referred me to Dr. K.P. Rao, at the Hyderabad University. His was a name I thought I recognized, and indeed he is the author of the book Deccan Megaliths (1988, Sundeep Prakashan, Delhi), which I have often cited. So she gave me his contact information, and this morning I called him on the phone and asked if I could meet him. He proposed this afternoon, and so I went by bus to the campus (18 km away from the town) to meet him.
Dr. Rao turned out to be a very friendly man, and very helpful and interesting to talk to. He gave me copies of many of his articles, and allowed me to look at and photograph some of the pottery from a megalithic site that he has been excavating recently. He also said that when he goes for field work I can join him and participate in surveys and excavations and the like, whatever he's doing next summer. To top it all off he said I can come back and do some analysis of pottery and human remains from his recent excavations. It's all very future and tentative, but I'm still thrilled and excited nonetheless.
I have been doing some sightseeing too, and will post those pictures soon.

Systems to prevent voter fraud

2006-10-19T15:45:00.000+05:30

Voter fraud is a problem. It has always been a problem (as long as democracy has existed), and I'm sure it will always be a problem. A while ago I saw a news story in the form of video of a man testifying before the US Congress that he was hired to create a program to hack the computerized voting system in Florida. He claimed that as he understood it, he was writing this program so that future attempts at fraud and hacking could be more easily identified. I paraphrase: "It only took a few lines of code to insert a few extra thousand votes on whichever side you wanted them to be."

India has another sort of problem all together. For one they use paper ballots with pictures for the different parties and candidates. This results in several problems which are equally difficult to solve. The Indian press has been reporting on these problems and the government's efforts to solve them. One significant problem are armed gangs coming with fake ballots to stuff the ballot boxes. This has been solved with each of the voting centers being heavily guarded with armed police. So what if it feels like martial law when you go to vote. All those men with guns are there to protect democracy...

Another problem involves tampering with votes after they have been cast. For that they put giant padlocks on the metal boxes in which the votes are placed.

The third and perhaps most serious problem you might think would be individuals who attempt to vote more than once, or at more than one voting station. Since many people here don't carry government identification (there are no ID cards like drivers licenses that people carry regularly) instead the resort to a semi-permanent form of body modification. Like a club in New York, or a theater where they stamp your hand, once you have cast your one and only vote, they put a plus sign in ink on your finger and fingernail. Since there are multiple elections, for district representatives, ministers, etc., they reserve different fingers for different elections. In this way they mark you as a citizen, as one who has legally and rightfully participated in the democratic process.

In some ways it seems silly. In America we have computers for that, and you can only vote at your registered center where you are listed on a roster. You have to present proof of identity, but in the end they don't mark you in any way. And yet marking seems like a good idea. That way you can see who cares and who doesn't. On election day if you run into your friends, and you don't see black ink on their fingernail you can chastise them, and tell them to go participate in their democracy. That's what Democracy is supposed to be for. For that matter maybe it should be a tattoo. A small one, to be sure. But still, a small unique mark for each year that you vote. How brilliant would that be?

Video of the congressional testimony on vote machine hacking.

A poet and a saint (and a woman)

2006-10-19T15:29:00.000+05:30

This most recent weekend we took a trip to the temple in the town of Srivilliputhur, about an hour away from Madurai. The temple there is dedicated to the saintess and poet Andal, who wrote bhakti devotional poetry about the Lord Rangunathan, an avatar of Vishnu. The temple there was built in the Nayak period (14th century) and had exquisitely beautiful stone sculptures of which I took an excessive quantity of photographs. There isn't much else to say about it, so instead I'll refer you to my Flickr Page.

The main gateway or gopuram at the temple in Srivilliputhur.

No Wonder the British Preferred the Hills

2006-10-16T11:15:00.005+05:30

View from the train going up the mountain to Ooty
Ooty is one of the most beautiful places in India. It was one of several important "hill stations" built by the British to avoid the heat and dust of the plains. The Nilgiris in general are unbelieveably beautiful. And I was fortunate enough to live there, in a town called Lovedale, for 3 months several years ago. This past weekend I went to Lovedale to visit the friends that I made there. Because of it's beauty and temperate climate, the Nilgiris have long attracted outsiders. Including the British, but also North Indians and various European expats.

Tea plantations in the clouds and fog.

The result is that a North Indian woman and her husband moved down to Lovedale to retire. After he passed away she decided to start a school. She hired teachers including my friend Josephine, to teach in this school. After a few years she got tired of running the school and closed it down. Then she offered Josephine a job as her house servant, gave her and her family (husband and two children) a single room to live in. This room is attached to a three room cottage which she rents out, often to foreigners, such as myself, which is how I became acquainted with Josephine and Lovedale. Recently she added a kitchen on to the one room, so that now Josephine and her family have one room for sleeping, plus a kitchen.

What is worse than having to be a servant, is being treated like one. And that is the tragedy of the situation. "Leela" is her pet name for Josephine, and she shouts it at the top of her lungs whenever she wants tea.

So when I went to Lovedale to visit this weekend I decided to do something to try to help improve their lives. Josephine's husband is an Auto rickshaw driver, (like a small three wheeled taxi, if you've never seen one), but business is rough and he doesn't own his own auto. Most of his earnings go to pay the rent on the auto itself. Also, these days many auto drivers have cell phones, which allow them to maintain regular customers. Raja (that's his name) wasn't able to compete. So on top of the birthday presents for Cinderella, I bought them a cell phone and a subscription to service for life. All they have to do is pay 50 rupees every 6 months to keep it active. My good deed for the week.

If I wanted to here, I could go on and on about the not-nice deeds of the rich woman who employs my friend. But suffice it to say she does not treat her as an equal, and barely as another human being. It is not slavery, to be sure, but the analogy can be drawn.

And yes, Cinderella really is her name. I'm not sure if Josephine knows the American story or only heard the name somewhere, but she named her daughter, her eldest child Cinderella. And despite the fact that both her parents are still living, this real life Cinderella lives in almost as tragic circumstances. All I can say is that I hope her prince one day comes. It was her fourteenth birthday on Sunday and we celebrated with presents, church, more presents, and chocolate cake. The chocolate cake was amazing.

I was only able to stay for two days, but it was still lovely. And I hope I really did make a difference in their lives. We shall see.

Cinderella, Josephine, Malcom and Raja in front of their home.

The view from their front door. Clouds and mountains, clouds like mountains.

Women Dance the KummiAdi

2006-10-06T12:20:00.000+05:30

Here is the video:

Village Festivals

2006-10-05T15:46:00.000+05:30

Yesterday I went to the village of Vilaacheri, where I hope to start pottery lessons next week. I went because I was invited for a festival the name of which I'm not entirely clear on. The festival consisted of the following: Extremely loud film music played over gigantic loudspeakers, drunk men, millions of children, women dancing the KummiAdi, men shouting and whistling, and the procession of the village gods around the village on ceramic horses painted brightly and carried with long bamboo poles by 8 young men each. The village was festively decorated with streamers and each house had beautiful chalk paintings, called 'kolam' out front. Where the procession was set to begin, the women were dancing. Then when they finished, the men picked up the ceramic horses, beginning with the head god of the village, seated on the first horse, and processed to the main temple, and from there to each of the other temples in the town. It was fascinating, but also exhausting.

I also seem to be playing a small role in the politics of the village, since I have been befriended by a woman who is running for village president (what used to be called 'headman'). Her husband who is now dead was the headman many years back, and now she also has the desire to run for office. I was with her before the procession started, as we walked around the village, she greeted many people and introduced them to me. Whether she thinks her friendship with a foreigner will help her in any way, I can't really say. Whether it could actually help her get votes, I don't know. But there are seven people running for the position, so who's to say.

The women dancing the KummiAdi.
p.s. I have a video of the women dancing as well, but I'm still working on uploading it.

An Earth a Day

2006-10-02T19:36:00.000+05:30

As another aside, if you have a minute check out this quiz that estimates your consumption on a world scale. It's depressing, but probably somewhat accurate.

In India, where I consume almost entirely local products, never drive a vehicle, walk or take the bus almost everywhere, etc. I still consume more than my share of the planet per population. In America, according to my normal American consumer habits it tells me that if everyone in the world lived like me, we would need 4.5 earths to support us all.
Check it out: Earthday.org Footprint Quiz

Off the beaten path... Kodumanal

2006-10-02T17:23:00.000+05:30

Finally I was able to get to visit the site of my future research: Kodumanal.
I left Saturday morning on a train to the town of Erode. This cost 32 rupees. A bus to the even smaller town of Chennimalai (6 rupees), and from there a bus to the tiny village of Kodumanal (3 rupees). A chance to visit the site of my archaeological dreams? Priceless. Or well, nearly so, anyway.

The travel was uneventful save for the barrage of questions I usually get when people realize I speak some Tamil: Where is your native place? Why have you come to India? Why have you come here specifically? What do you do? What do you study (i.e. what degree)? What subject do you study? How old are you? Are you married? Do you have children? Do you have siblings? Are they married? Do they have children? What do your parents do? Will you get married? When? Do you have a groom already picked out? And sometimes questions like: Why do you have three piercings in one ear and only one in the other? Do you wear Indian clothes in America? Do you wear Sarees? Where do your parents live in the US? Is it a joint family? etc. etc. These questions I answered on the bus to several people on the way to the village and several times to different people in the village. Luckily, once I've told a few people, and they are around, whenever someone else comes by and starts asking the same questions, whoever I've already spoken with begins answering for me. What is especially fascinating is that everyone always asks the same set of questions. Sometimes they only ask the first three or four or five, but the order is almost always the same.
I was also questioned on the bus, as to whether I knew the address where I was going. And I didn't but I knew the name of the village, and the name of a man to talk to when I got there. I hoped that was enough.

Sure enough, I got off of the bus and asked for Mr. Somu and was directed towards a house. It turns out it wasn't Mr. Somu's house, but the house that Dr. Rajan had arranged for me to stay in for the night. They provided me with a bed and a meal, and were very hospitable and nice. Of course they too asked all the same questions, but I didn't mind. Theirs was a joint family, one grandmother, two sons, two daughters-in-law, and 2 grandsons, one for each couple. And they all lived under one roof. Anyway, they fed me a lovely dinner of rice, two kinds of vegetables, sambar, rasam and yogurt. It was delicious. Despite the fact that they had no running water, (a cistern over the kitchen sink and gravity provided it instead) they had a Sony Wega Trinitron TV, cable and a DVD player. So we watched a Tamil movie in the evening while the two two-year old boys played with their toy cars.
In the morning Mr. Somu came and got me and we went to check out the site.

There wasn't alot to see, especially in the habitation area. A mound was not especially apparent, although the scatter of pottery and the fine clear crystal debitage of bead making was very abundant. The trenches had all been filled in, and were not marked anywhere. And the whole thing was under cultivation. There was a lot more to see with the megaliths in the burial part of the site, although that too had been plowed at some point in the past. One large excavated megalith was left open, and I'm pictured below standing down inside it. A few others were apparent on the surface. Also, menhirs, or standing stones were still there and quite obvious. If there were really over 100 megaliths there when Rajan and the archaeologists studied the site nearly 20 years ago, many of them must be gone now, or are no longer visible on the surface.
In any case, it was immensely useful to get a first hand view of the site, rather than simply read about it or look at black and white pictures in a book. As you can see from below, the pictures are nice, but you still don't really get a sense of the whole thing. Of course it's spread out over 50 acres, or so Mr. Somu said.
Luckily I didn't fall in any more septic tanks... (there were several possible candidates, but I was adept at avoiding them.)

This is Kodumanal, the habitation site.

Me in front of the transepted cist of an excavated megalithic burial.

One of the stone circles, indicating a sub-surface burial.

Deadly Virus Resurrected

2006-09-28T14:57:00.000+05:30

This is a sort of fascinating article about the 1918 flu that killed so many people in Europe. Read it if you have a spare minute. :)

Resurrected virus shows how 1918 flu strain committed mass murder from PhysOrg.com

Scientists testing a resurrected version of the 1918 flu virus on lab mice believe the 20th-century's deadliest pathogen reaped its toll through a combination of runaway tissue inflammation and cell death.

[...]

How many pots could a potter pot if a potter could pot pots?

2006-09-26T14:19:00.000+05:30

After visiting the church in Idaikattur, we went to the small town of Manamadurai to see a local pottery operation. The director of the Tamil program Dr. Bharathy knows my interest, and I think that was the main reason for that part of the journey. It was an amazing operation. They were organized as a cooperative, a number of families sharing facilities, and the work involved in firing. They also appeared to be involved in fairly large bulk production operation, and were in the process of loading the pots in to trucks with straw cushioning when we visited. They make a variety of vessels, although the proportions have changed. Ceramic cooking vessels are used in the home here only on special or ritual occasions, and small oil lamps for altars are common. But the largest volume is flower pots, which are all hand made.
I would have loved to have studied pottery there with them, especially because of the family environment, but it's really too far to travel from Madurai on a regular basis. Instead I'll be taking pottery lessons twice a week in the village of Vilaachery about 45 minute bus ride from my neighborhood.
I don't start classes until next week but I'm excited, and I'll post pictures, if I manage to make anything with any success.

A young girl making small oil lamps for use in temples and home altars for worshipping the various Hindu deities.

Large piles of pottery, finished and ready to ship.

Replicating Reims Cathedral

2006-09-25T14:24:00.000+05:30

It was already sweltering hot when we four students piled into a jeep-like vehicle to visit the Reims Cathedral of the East. This impressive structure was built in 1894 by a French jesuit priest. He had wanted to built a church in the small village of Idaikattur in Tamil Nadu, but lacked the funds. And so, he went home to France for funding and found a protestant woman who had been miraculously cured of a heart ailment after praying to the Sacred Heart. She donated 2000 francs, which allowed the kindly French father to return to India to build his majestic cathedral, and in doing so encroach on a large section of the villagers land.

The villagers protested, but the Father had already laid the foundation, and refused to change his plans. The peasants took their case to court, and tried to prevent the building of the church. Though the Father's lawyer advised him to lie in order to win the case, the honest father refused. He had faith in the lord.

Then the judge had a dream, in it the church was being built by 153 angels. (He counted them all. How he could tell them apart I don't know. I always have trouble telling one angel apart from another.) In any case, the Judge found in favor of the father, and convinced the villagers to give up their land. The church was built. In it he installed sculptures of many saints, as well as the 153 angels. Whether they each sat for portraits individually, I don't know.

It was indeed quite beautiful. The stained glass and statues were imported from france although they decided pews were unnecessary as the villagers were used to sitting on the floor.

Pass the Roti

2006-09-22T19:28:00.000+05:30

Ah, there's nothing better than a refreshing dose of bureaucracy. Today I decided to plan my travels outside of Madurai, to go visit my friends in Ooty, and to go to Hyderabad over my fall break. I started by looking at the newspaper to see which airlines were advertising the lowest rates. AirDeccan was advertising a rate from Hyderabad to Chennai for 74 Rupees, or about $1.85 plus taxes and fees. I went to their website to no avail, I tried every search possible and this fare did not exist. The actual rates were 700 Rupees, from Hyderabad to Chennai and 1500 from Chennai to Hyderabad. A round trip ticket costing about 5000 rupees with taxes and surcharges. This is ridiculous compared to train fares, so I decided to try booking train tickets online. The train ticket booking online doesn't allow for round trip tickets, and each leg had to be booked individually, with a service charge for using the internet booking facility. Because I had 6 separate journeys, I decided to give up and go to the railway reservation office, and despite having to fill out a separate form for each leg, I would probably get it done in better time. I also had received my ATM card from the State Bank of India, with a notification to obtain my pin by going to the branch office. I went to the bank to do this, and was informed by the security guard that I had to speak with the bank manager. Then he asked when I received the card, and I told him yesterday. He then informed me that the pin would not be available until Monday. I must come back then. I asked if I could speak with the bank manager anyway, and he said no, come back Monday.
No problem.
So then I had to wait in a 5 or 6 person line to withdraw cash from the bank without an ATM card, when woman carrying two two thousand rupee notes decided to cut to the front of the line, as if having large denominations of cash gave her that right. Even the man behind the counter yelled at her. He still took her in front of 4 other waiting people. After receiving my cash, I went to the railway reservation office, filled out 6 individual sheets for reservation requests with mostly redundant information. The only thing that changed was the date, and name and number of the train. Otherwise, I wrote the Class, number of berths, my full name, age, sex, berth preference, full address, telephone number, date and signature 6 times. But for 270 rupees I am going to Ooty to visit my friends for a weekend, and for another 850 rupees I am going to Chennai and Hyderabad for my break.
I know it will all be worth it in the end. On top of which I will have contributed to the archives of the Indian railway, which some future graduate student will surely study. If it doesn't all burn down. I mean, I think that amount of paper all held in one place has a natural tendency to spontaneously ignite.

On another note, my friend Vivek, and several of his friends have a blog about Indian politics and current events which is very informative. It can be found at www.passtheroti.com.

I guess I do have something to say after all...

2006-09-20T15:36:00.000+05:30

For many years now I have resisted the idea of creating a blog, because, as I told people, I have nothing to say, and besides, no one would want to read it anyway. I have finally come to the point at which I don't really care if anyone reads it; and it turns out that I do have something to say after all.
This blog is the beginning of my commentary on events, politics, and my own personal experiences in the world, as strange and absurd as it may be.
Do I have any expertise, you may ask yourself. And I can say, no, probably not. Perhaps on some subjects.
And so I give you opinions, some justified, others not. I cannot promise to write without bias, since I think that's an impossible goal.

So I will quote Umberto Eco:
"I asked for a lawyer and they gave me an avocado."

The Avocado Advocate

Off the soapbox, it's time to compromise

At a loss for what to say

Adjust-panni, ippo enna?

Adjust-panne

Scientists Suggest To Save Energy, Stop Wasting Food

Bugs and Super-bugs

Hosting, and guesting in the 21st century

Profile in SPAN Magazine

Time-Lapse Photo software for the Mac? ImageCapture!

Some Thoughts on the Future of Higher Education: YouTube Lectures, Distance Learning, and Open-source Education

Belonging

A life dilemma

May is the hottest month

The Indus Valley Debate: Language, Script, Identity, Complexity

The Fight for Equality Goes On

A Day in the Life

A very unpleasant experience

Longing

Politics, Power, the History of India and Me

Home sweet home

What to Pack for India

Contents:

1. Toiletries etc.

2. Mosquito Related

3. Guide books

4. Clothing

5. Assorted Useful Gadgets

6. Gifts to bring

Happy Thanksgiving!

A Village Visit

Staying Connected

Wildlife and not-so-wild-life of Tamil Nadu

IAWAWSA: International Association for Women Archaeologists Working in South Asia

My present location and the local wild life

Monsoon Mice and a Philosophy of Hardship

On Arrival

Cultural Homogeneity and Its Discontents

Brahmagiri

Brains....

When Can I Buy the Pro-Bacterial soap?

If you really love her... say it with tequila.

Science Fiction

Do Not Question: A poem by Shāʾistah Ḥabīb

Italy and after

Cultural Encounter of the Day: Columbus Was From India

Expectations, Great and Otherwise

Alien-Celebrity status

Oh the places I've been...

F***ing Patriarchy

Ah, the Travel Woes

Wedding, Punjab and Pakistan

The Beauty of Bureacracy

Pierced Through the Nose

The Story of Pumpkin

The Rest of Hyderabad

Happy in Hyderabad

Systems to prevent voter fraud

A poet and a saint (and a woman)

No Wonder the British Preferred the Hills

Women Dance the KummiAdi

Village Festivals

An Earth a Day

Off the beaten path... Kodumanal

Deadly Virus Resurrected

How many pots could a potter pot if a potter could pot pots?

Replicating Reims Cathedral

Pass the Roti

I guess I do have something to say after all...