I Run, Therefore I Am.... Nuts

It's raining sideways. The temperature is 25 degrees Celsius (about 77 Fahrenheit), near the coldest I've felt in over 10 months, and there's a stiff wind. I've been running hard for about an hour. Despite the temperature and wind, I'm shirtless and steaming from my head and torso. I'm soaked not just to the skin, but THROUGH it, as if my flesh was just another piece of fabric. My organs are wet. Moreso than they are under normal circumstances, I'm sure. My shoes and socks are completely waterlogged and with each step, they squish and eject water back into the environment. Water streams into my eyes, and with each exhalation a shower spews from my lips and moustache. Like a kid in the bathtub, the tips of my fingers and toes are pink raisins. From stomping through puddles, my legs up to the mid-thigh where my shorts begin are covered with mud. After my run when I slow to a walk, my legs shake uncontrollably, exhausted to the point where they can barely support my weight. As my heart rate and body temperature start to drop back to normal, I'm exhausted, in pain, filthy, and freezing. I walk back to Chacko Homes, take a frigid shower and look forward to doing it again tomorrow.

Monsoon season is AWESOME.

Update

I haven't written much since we got back from our All-India tour, and there's a definite reason for that. I had started to write at length on that reason, but have wisely, I think, decided to not be deliberately antagonistic. That, and the fact that the internet went out before I could post it yesterday. Blessings in disguise.

Instead of ranting about the attempted censorship of our blogs, I'm just going to write what I want to when I want to from now on, whether it's good, bad, ugly, or otherwise. Not everything I write is going to be deep, meaningful, or reflective. Not everything I write is going to be flattering for India, UC College, the people I know, or myself for that matter. I'm obviously not going to go out of my way to slander anybody or anything. But what I write will be honest, and will be a truthful depiction of MY PERCEPTIONS of the experiences I'm having. If you want objective reporting and analysis of social issues, go read The Economist or something.

Anywho...

I just want to catch people up on what's been going on with me here since we got back one month ago to the day. The southwest monsoon has finally started, as have classes at UC College. The temperature is now comfortably in the high 70's/low 80's. At night I'm sleeping in long pants, socks and a hoodie, I find these temperatures so cold. Even though students are back at the college and classes are back in session, I haven't really been doing much. I split my days now between the computer in the library, the canteen, and the reading room in the English Department. Of course I engage students, teachers and staff whenever I get the chance, but mostly I've just been checking and writing e-mails and reading. On Friday I start teaching some classes again, so things should pick up. A couple of days ago, I went into Ernakulam and recorded the narration for an online typing class. This is the second project I've provided narration for since I've been here. Maybe I should look into a job as a voice-over actor. And last week, I celebrated the Feast of St. Anthony of Padua at a Franciscan Monastery.

The proximity of the end of my term of service is driving me crazy. July 31st is still more than a month off, but it's looming incredibly large in my mind. No matter how hard I try, I can not keep my head in India; all I can think of is going home. I've been away from friends, family, and the comforts and distractions of my life in the US for so long, all I can think about is where I want to go to eat, what movies I want to watch, what games to play with my brother, what's the first song I'll play on my electric guitar, where I'll live, where I'll work, where I'll go on my long runs, what characters to roll in World of Warcraft. Argh!

So that, in brief, is where I'm at now. There's a bunch more stupid, non-reflective stuff I want to write, so I'm going to write it. Expect to hear a lot more from me in the coming days.

The Road To Enlightenment

It's seven a.m., the 20th of April. We've spent the last three days on trains, only just having gotten our first good night's sleep in a hotel. We're bumping down a dirt road alongside a wide, dried up river; six people plus one driver in an autorickshaw. We're all relieved and excited to finally be headed to Bodh Gaya, the first actual destination on our All India Tour.

During the approximately hour long ride from the town of Gaya to Bodh Gaya, we passed through the crowded, dirty streets of a small town; thriving, verdant fields; arid, dusty, dead farms; we saw forests, plains, and hills, lives of opulent ease and luxury and of destitute poverty. I wonder how much of this scene is the same as when the Buddha walked this same road along the river 2500 years ago. Probably more than I expect.


I think about the stories I know of the Buddha's life. Born into the Ksatriya caste of warriors and heads of state, the Buddha (then Prince Siddhartha) was, throughout his early life, preened to be the ruler of the Sakya kingdom. Upon Siddhartha's birth, a sage proclaimed that he would go on to become a great leader, but would not say whether this would be in a spiritual or secular role. Determined that no son of his would ever become some crazy mystic, Siddhartha's father went to great lengths to keep his young son insulated from the "real world" by keeping him safe in the coccoon of palace life and surrounding him with only beauty and all the good things of life. Eventually, however, Siddhartha began to have the feeling that there must be more to life than just the limited exposure he was granted. He wanted to see what was outside the palace, and so convinced his servant and companion to take him out. During the course of three separate trips outside the palace, Siddhartha saw people afflicted by the three unavoidable types of suffering we all face-- sickness, old age, and death. He also, almost certainly, saw poverty and the way that most people have to struggle simply to survive. He became aware of the injustices of the caste system and began to doubt the religion he was taught to believe from birth that imposed these arbitrary and cruel strictures on those he recognized as fellow humans. His eyes opened to what life really was for the majority of people, Siddhartha knew that he could not continue to lead his insular palatial life, and set out to find out What It's All About. He went from teacher to teacher, tradition to tradition. He was an apt pupil and quickly outstripped every teacher he had, but he never got a satisfying answer to his questions. For several years, he practiced the strictest austerities, sure that mortification of the body was the only way to attain enlightenment. Eventually, however, he decided that asceticism just makes you physically weak and does nothing to foster realization and he wandered, dejected and disillusioned, down from the mountains and walked along a river until he came to a forest outside the village of Uruvella-- today, Bodh Gaya. There he sat down under a tree. And just sat. Local children would come and give him rice and ricemilk each day to keep his body strong and able to support his concentration and practice of meditation. And as he sat, Siddhartha saw into the true nature of all things-- nothing exists independently, in and of itself. Each thing depends on all other things for its existence. We suffer because we cling to the idea of a separate, independent self which does not exist. And he formulated an Eightfold Path that could guide one to realize his selflessness and interdependence with all the rest of creation.

In the Soto Zen tradition, we are told that we are all already Buddhas. Our fundamental nature is Buddha Nature and thus there is nothing to attain; there is no special state of mind we need to realize; we do not have to "try to create a Buddha." Everything we do, whatever we do, is an expression of our Buddhanature.

Maybe I'm too cynical to be a good Buddhist, I don't know. I feel like most of us are a much more similar to Prince Siddhartha than we are to the Buddha, the Awakened One. Or maybe a more apt analogy is that we're like Siddhartha's father, and our minds, our consciences, our consciousnesses are like Siddhartha-- who eventually grows up to become the Buddha. We do everything we can to avoid pain and suffering. We're obsessed with safety and security and insulate ourselves so that the Real World doesn't intrude upon our peace of mind and sense of wellbeing. We keep ourselves constantly busy and distracted so that we never have to acknowledge or confront the suffering in ourselves or in the world. But try as we might, I think we all experience some feeling of dissonance. A feeling that Something Isn't Quite Right Here. Despite our best efforts, our feeling of peace, wellbeing and security isn't quite complete. What gives??

And at this point we have a choice. We can ignore the feeling, insulate and anaesthetize ourselves further, go deeper into our snuggly, happy castle and forget that there is a whole world outside. Or we, like Siddhartha, can choose to investigate what's out there; become aware of what is happening outside of our safe, warm fortress and risk finding out unpleasant things and having to deal with our complicity in them. This awareness, I think, is our first step on the journey if we are honestly going to walk with the Buddha, Christ, and all the other great teachers who have trodden it before and continue to tread it with us. Like Siddhartha, once we are aware of the suffering that exists outside (and indside, even though we notice that even less) our palace walls, we really have no choice but to change the way we are living and devote our lives-- often, it seems, with a lot of trial and error-- to finding another way.

The Rundown

We just got back last weekend from our All India Tour. The purpose of the tour, as far as I can imagine, was to give us a broader, fuller picture of India. Since one area of the country differs from every other area in its language, dress, food, religious makeup, political system, geography, weather, and pretty much every other way imaginable, the only way to even begin to aproach an idea of what "India" is is to see and experience as much of the diversity as possible. Kerala, in particular, seems to be a particularly anomalous state, so getting to see other parts of the country was a very valuable experience.

But aside from calculated exposure to other parts of India, the Tour also proved to be several other things. Some parts of the trip tested our behaviour and tempers as Christians, Buddhists, and whatever-the-heck else we are (tests which we roundly failed); other parts were almost like a vacation; the whole thing was an experiment in group decision-making, and communal use of money and other resources.

I intend to write a sort of series of vignettes that will detail certain experiences I had and my reactions to them and reflections on them, and let this patchwork give you an idea of what the tour was like. But before I do that, I'll give a rundown of the places I went just so there is some sort of context for the forthcoming vignettes.

Our trip was sort of screwed from the beginning. We had booked our first train ticket back in February, from Ernakulam to Varanasi-- it would be a 50 hour train ride in an a/c coach that would get us to one of the most important sites in India and leave us in a good position to explore the north of the country. When we booked that train, we didn't actually get reservations-- we were put on the waiting list, but told "Don't worry, you'll get on." As the weeks went by, and we were still wait-listed, we were still told there would be no problem. People would cancel their tickets and we would end up getting berths. The day of our departure arrived, the other YAVs came up to Ernakulam from Kottayam, and we were still wait-listed. When they asked the head ticket examiner if we'd be able to get on the train, his precise words were "Not a chance."

Fortunately, the Chief Reservation Officer in Ernakulam was super cool and helpful and hooked us up with tickets to Chennai (Madras), from whence we could avail the Foreign Tourist Quota and arrange tickets to the north. However, we still had to wait two additional days in Kerala for the train to Chennai. But, we eventually made it to Chennai with no problem, got there around 7am and were some of the first people in line when the Reservation Office opened. Here we learned a very useful fact that got us through the majority of our tour-- the railway stations in most major cities have a Foreign Tourist Reservation Office. A reservation office just for foreigners where the people are actually helpful (for the most part) and help clueless tourists figure out how to get where they're going and go to great lengths to get you on the train you need or help you figure out alternative means when that's not possible.

So we booked a bunch of tickets from the Chennai Station and, thanks to the diligent efforts of the woman at that office, we were able to set out for the north that very day. Rather than going to Varanasi first, we had to take a train to a place called Mughalsarai, which was actually closer to Gaya, where we had planned to go after Varanasi. But that was fine. We could go to Gaya first, then head over to Varanasi. But the train ride to Mughalsarai was a NIGHTMARE. The train was packed to such an extent that one could barely move. You couldn't even get to the toilet at night because every inch of floor was covered with sleeping bodies and their bags. Making things even worse, the horde of men that situated themselves in the aisle next to us and occasionally intruded upon our reserved seats were of an especially rude, leering, hostile variety. None of the women in our group felt comfortable sleeping with those eyes on them. And we had to endure this for two days.

But we survived, got to Mughalsarai, and later that day caught the six-hour-long train to Gaya. We arrived at Gaya in the afternoon of our fourth day out from Kerala and just found a hotel and showered, washed clothes, and rested. The following morning we set out for nearby Bodh Gaya. Bodh Gaya is the town that has been set up around the site of the Buddha's elightenment. While the focal point is the Mahabodhi Temple complex, which actually houses the Bodhi Tree itself (the tree the Buddha was meditating under when he attained enlightenment-- well, not that actual tree anymore, but its direct descendant), Bodh Gaya is also home to temples from all the Buddhist denominations, and an 80' tall Great Buddha Statue. And lots of people trying to cash in by selling Buddhist swag. While I was standing there admiring the Bodhi Tree, a twig and a couple of leaves fell off it. I picked them up and the guards motioned that I could hang onto them. So I have some pieces of the Bodhi Tree. I think that's pretty cool.

After Bodh Gaya, we caught an early morning train to Varanasi. Varanasi is a really cool old city; in fact, it's the oldest continually inhabited city in the world. In addition to that, it is the holiest city in the Hindu tradition, and thousands of pilgrims and tourists arrive there every day. The dominant feature of Varanasi is the Ganges River, upon which the city is built, and the ghats, giant stairways that go from the city down to the river. The ghats are used for pujas (devotional ceremonies), ceremonial bathing in the river, and for funerals and cremations. The city itself is mostly made up of alleys too narrow for even an auto rickshaw to fit down, and is crowded with merchants, beggars, cows, tourists, pilgrims and sunyasis (holy men). It very nicely meets the romantic, mystical, Orientalist notions that most of us have about India. Our first night there we attended a huge puja on one of the main ghats, and then got to see a performance of classical sitar and tabla music over dinner. The highlight of this part of the trip for me was when the sitar player saw me inspecting his instrument after the concert and sat me down and began teaching me to play it! Early the next morning, we got to take a sunrise boat ride on the Ganges and see the city's riverfront by boat. It was beautiful, and the perspective we got of the city was overwhelming. We spent the rest of that day just kind of wandering around and shopping, but I did end up at one of the Burning Ghats, where cremation ceremonies take place. I wrote about that in my most recent newsletter, and will probably do a post about it in a little while, so I won't write about it here.


That afternoon around 5, we caught a 12 hour train to Delhi and arrived safely the following noon (the math only works if you're familiar with Indian Standard Time). At this point the group split up, and while the rest of the group stayed in Delhi for a few days, Alicia and I got right on another train and went up to Pathankot in Himachal Pradesh, from whence we took a 5 hour bus ride at 5am to Dharamsala/McLeod Ganj in the foothills of the Himalayas. Dharamsala is the name commonly given to the town that serves as the Dalai Lama's home in exile, the centre of the exiled Tibetan theocracy, and the epicentre of the Tibetan refugee community in India. But the actual name of the town is McLeod Ganj. Dharamsala is about 4 km down the mountain and really just has a marketplace, some restaurants, and a couple of hotels. McLeod Ganj was BEAUTIFUL!! If you looked in one direction you could see the plains of northern India stretching away to the horizon. In the other direction were the snowcapped peaks of the Himalayas. I've never seen anything so amazing in my life. Mostly we just walked around enjoying the views, eating awesome Tibetan food and, under the pretext of supporting the Tibetan refugee community, brought a crap ton of stuff. Disappointingly, I got really sick our second day there (our only full day) and didn't leave the hotel room at all. The third day there, we visited the main temple complex, which is supposedly a near duplicate of the temple in Lhasa. McLeod Ganj was cool in the same way as Bodh Gaya, in that there were Buddhist monks and nuns walking around all over the place, somtimes mumbling prayers. Of course, at Bodh Gaya there were monks from all different traditions, while McCleod Ganj was pretty much exclusively Tibetan Buddhist. But still, both places were infused with a sense of peace and mindfulness that it was very refreshing to dwell in.


We left McLeod Ganj the same we had come, taking the bus back down to Pathankot in the evening and getting on an overnight train to Delhi. After a very brief stop in Delhi-- just an afternon where we just showered, slept, and ate-- we headed down to Bangalore (about 2 days on the train) so Alicia could catch her flight back to the States. After she left, I took a train west to Goa where I just relaxed and waited for the rest of the group. Goa is like Hawai'i for Europeans and Aussies. Its palm-fringed beaches and cerulean waters are the kind of things postcard makers dream of. Not a bad place to spend a week while my friends were trudging through the desert in Rajasthan. After a week on my own there, the others joined me and, together, we spent another week in Goa before heading back to our sites in Kerala.

Our tour was a nice, long break from the multitude of stresses I encounter trying to be an accepting, accepted, and productive member of the community in and around UC College. And while it was replete with stresses of its own, they are the stresses that any tourist or traveler will encounter. And that's much less alienating than feeling that I'm totally on my own in my struggles. But now I'm back in Alwaye, the only white person for 60 km in any direction, committed to making the most of my last two months here. I feel rested, relaxed, refreshed, and enthusiastic.... It's going to be a good couple of months.

Stay tuned for more detailed posts on the places we visited...

A Lesson in Karma

Every night for the last few weeks, my room has been plagued by little black beetle sort of things. I wish I could say definitely what they are, but that's the best I can do. No one seems to know what they're called, even though I see them everywhere. They don't bite, they don't sting, they don't make noise. They're completely harmless, as far as I can tell. But after 7pm, they're EVERYWHERE. On my walls, on my floor, in my bathroom, on my desk, amongst my books, on the little Buddha statue I got in Sri Lanka, on my bed and pillow, on (and in) my guitar. And when I sit totally still to meditate and when I lay down to go to sleep, they're all over me.

I try to refrain from destroying any kind of life as much as possible. But when it's after midnight and I'm exhausted, hot and sweaty, and have been laying in bed awake since 10 and one of these little bugs lands on my face, I just get so... MAD. Every bug that lands on me while I'm trying to sleep gets crushed between my thumb and forefinger and flicked to the floor.

So now my floor is covered with little black chitinous corpses. Not only do I feel guilty for destroying living beings when I see the little beetle charnel ground, but the pile of corpses has now attracted a colony of carnivorous red ants. So now there are tiny little flesh devouring red ants EVERYWHERE in my room. And they see the human form for what it really is-- a big heap of decaying meat.

So now, not only is my room still being invaded by beetles every night, I'm also covered with painful red ant bites; most of which have been delivered in the most inconvenient (and painful!) places imaginable at the most inconvenient times (usually while I'm in the middle of an afternoon nap).

Awesome.

Pictures

For anyone who is interested, I've finally posted my pictures from the month of January and our travels in Andhra Pradesh. Just follow the link on my sidebar to see my pictures.

Finally...

As I briefly (and skeptically) mentioned in the previous post, my friend Pradeep had been planning to conduct some interviews in the nearby dalit colonies. Against all odds, this has actually happened, and I've spent several recent evenings with him, talking to people in the colony. I've learned more in this past week than I have in the previous six months. Here is a little bit of what I've learned.

First, allow me to clarify what it means to be a dalit, as there are a lot of inaccurate impressions and assumptions floating around out there. Dalit is not a caste name-- there is no Dalit caste. Rather, this is a title that members of several of the lowest castes have taken upon themselves. "Dalit" translates literally to "ground down" or "downtrodden." Those who have been systematically oppressed, discriminated against, and excluded by the caste structure identify themselves as dalits as a means of asserting their identity and making explicit their status. Since this is a term that does not apply to a specific caste, it also serves to unify those who might otherwise only be working for the uplift of their own particular caste and to create a movement of the oppressed that transcends caste lines.

And while, by definition, any person who is systematically oppressed and denied rights, access to resources, and dignity could be called a dalit, the term is currently used mostly in reference to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (SCs and STs). When India's constitution was drafted in 1950, it outlawed caste discrimination and sought to redress the harm done to the lower castes and tribal peoples by identifying many of these as SCs and STs and creating reservations (think affirmative action) for members of the SCs and STs in higher educational institutions and in government posts and civil jobs, and by earmarking money to provide for uplift in the form of loans for education and housing. However, reservation only benefits a very few members of these communities and most of the money set aside for their development goes into the pockets of local officials whose job it is to distribute this money. So while Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes are the politicaly correct, sanitized terminology, many people still prefer the dalit title as they are not really benefitting from their inclusion as members of SCs and STs.

Another common misconception is that dalit means poor. While this is often the case, it is important to note that dalit is not a class identification. Not all dalits are poor, and not all poor people are dalits. It is true that it is hard for many dalits to find work. In many cases, traditional professions (which are largely, if not entirely, caste based) are being rendered obsolete by modernization (which, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. Yes, I'm kind of a bleeding heart, but I'm not that bad...) and many people are being forced to either relocate to more urban areas in search of employment or to engage in daily wage labour. As the term implies, daily wage labour is not regular, consistent employment. Rather, men will go out each day in search of unskilled work-- construction, agricultural labour-- and women will often go for household labour. And if someone works one day, there is no guarantee that he/she will work the next. Aside from being an inconsistent and unreliable form of income, daily wage labour also pays significantly less than a regular job would. Just like many workers in America have to settle for negligible pay because there are people in other countries who are willing to do the same work for much less, wage labourers in Kerala must settle for this lousy pay because there is a constant stream of people from Tamil Nadu and other neighboring states who will do these jobs for much less.

In the dalit colony Pradeep and I have been visiting, there are members of three different castes-- the ulaadas, pulayas, and paraiyars (interesting note-- it is from this caste name that the word pariah has its origin). I am unclear as to which is which, but traditionally these castes were basket-weavers, tree cutters, and rat catchers. Those who were tree cutters can no longer find work in their traditional profession because there is a glut of labour in the lumber industry. Because it pays reasonably well, rural people from all castes have flocked to tree-cutting for their wages. Also, as large companies with technology more advanced than an axe and rope take over the lumber industry, the traditional labourers are foced out of their profession and are having to turn to daily wage labour to make a living. Similarly, those who used to make their living by weaving and selling reed baskets no longer have a market because of the influx of higher quality plastic products and they, likewise, are forced to do wage or household labour in order to survive. For the rat catchers, whose job it was to rid their employers' paddy fields of vermin, the stigma and indignity (is that even a word??) associated with the job led many people to voluntarily eschew their traditional profession while modern pesticides and pest-control practices drove the rest out of their jobs (this, to say nothing of the environmental issues surrounding this).

Nearly every person we have spoken to thus far in the colony goes for daily wage labour. Only one out of the maybe 50 people we have talked to has a regular salaried job with benefits. This man, Sureshan, has a reservation job working in the canteen of Travancore/Cochin Chemicals. And while he has a regular job, a well-maintained house, and a reasonably comfortable life, he still can not move out of this colony where at least four homes are crowded onto every ten cents (100 cents= 1 acre) of land and there is no infrastructure for indoor plumbing. While there is no official or structural bar to upward mobility for dalits, the attitude and mentality of people in the mainstream keeps them on the margins of society. News reports are replete with stories of violence against dalits who do not stay in their place or who dare to step outside the normative roles proscribed upon them. Dalits are punished-- beaten, murdered, their wives and daughters raped, their homes destroyed, their water (yes, in many places they have a specifically dalit water tank) poisoned-- for infringements as dire as drawing water from the public tap. There are laws and acts in place specifically to protect dalits from caste violence. But when invoked, the cases are rarely followed through, especially when, as is often the case, the perpetrators are influential members of upper caste families. However, when dalit frustration boils over into protest or violence, they are quickly and efficiently dealt with by the law.

I've tried to cram a lot into this post... I hope it makes sense and is at least a little edifying. I will write more as my understanding (hopefully) grows with subsequent visits to the colony. There is a lot related to the "dalit issue," such as land reform and the role of religion in their struggle for dignity and development, that I haven't even touched on here. Hopefully I'll be able to write about these things in the future. But I think this is quite enough for now.

Cast of Thousands

I realize how negative that last post might have sounded. Which is OK, because I've been having a pretty tough time and feeling pretty negative for the last month and change. But in a sincere effort to allow my readers to approach the "truth" of my situation here, I'll make a deliberate effort in these next few posts to write about some of the positive aspects of my experience rather than just crapping on India and myself.

Even though, as mentioned in my last post and evidenced in the last 26 years of my life, I am an intensely private, independent person and it has always been a challenge for me to open myself to other people, there are a number of people who have deeply impacted my experiences in India so far and I, taking a cue from Cat, who is much better at this whole blogging thing than I, would like to introduce some of them to you here.

Thomas John Achen and Betty Kochamma-- the yin and yang of the South India YAV program. Achen is the head and voice of the program, Kochamma, the hands and heart. Together they are as wonderful a surrogate family as anyone could ask for. As busy as they are, they are always willing to feed, listen to, give advice to, and be a sanctuary for us.

Phillip Koshy-- One of the residents of Chacko Homes, Phillip is totally off his rocker and I love him for it. I can always count on him for an unintended dose of perspective. Phillip is the king of the world he has built in his head-- at least once a day he is offered the presidency or kingship of some country or the other, and, as of the latest tally, he has been given the Nobel Prize 8 times since September. He often talks about his wife and daughter who are living in the States (don't tell Dick Cheney, but Phillip's wife is actually the vice-President of the US). And I often wonder if they're real at all. How much of his life is real and how much is entirely in his head? But how much of any of our lives is "real," and how much of it do we construct in our imaginations to create relevance and meaning for ourselves? Phillip may never know it but he has probably been my most valuable interlocutor in this ontological quest for understanding... or for the knowledge that I don't understand jack squat. But the most valuable thing I get from Phillip is that, real or not, he is really happy in the world he inhabits.

Johnappa and Gopalan-- affectionately dubbed (by me) Those Two Crazy Guys at UC College, Johnappa and Gopalan are research fellows working under the auspices of the English Department, and are probably the most interesting people at the college. When I first met them, they were researching the ancient yogic practice of alchemy in the creation of medicinal herbs and the practices of yogis who still live alone in caves up in the mountains which apparently allow them to live, if not eternally, then well beyond the normal span of days. Recent visits to their shared office have yielded discussions about ancient temples and lost treasure in the jungles of Kerala, pygmy elephants, yogic meditation, hydrogeology, lost tribes in the Andaman Islands that have never had contact with modern society, and Benny Hinn. Whenever life gets mundane, I know I can visit Johnappa and Gopalan and hear about something that will renew my sense of wonder. As of right now, we are tentatively planning to spend the end of March or the beginning of April tramping through the jungle in order to document the aforementioned lost temple. I also have plans to spend a week with Gopalan's guru in a cave up in the mountains, learning yoga and meditation. I get the feeling that some of the best stories about my year in India are going to come from rolling with these guys.

Dr. Prabu Ramachandran-- a new resident of Chacko Homes, Prabu is a proper early-20th-century English gentleman painted brown and dropped into 21st Century India. Given an entirely English education in pre-Independence India, he feels completely out of step with his countrymen and is almost as uncomfortable with Malayalam as I am. As gregarious and outgoing as anyone can be, Prabu is always ready with a witty anecdote or bawdy joke, and his old-fashioned Anglophilia is like a trip back to a time and place I never knew.

Pradeep Joseph-- I have to laugh at Pradeep because I see a lot of myself in his Quixotic efforts to do EVERYTHING. And in his efforts to do everything, he accomplishes almost nothing. I can really relate. I first got to know Pradeep in his position as Secretary of the Student Christian Fellowship. As one of the student leaders of the group, he shared my enthusiasm for mission and outreach and agreed that the SCF should be leading the College in meaningful engagement with social issues. As seems typical of India though, that enthusiasm has yet to translate into any sort of action. In the meantime, though, he has published his memoirs. Why? I don't know. But I got an autographed copy. He is now planning to make a "campus film," a fictitious documentary about the loss of open space in the campus and the decline of student debate and discussion due to the lack of a physical forum. Additionally he is writing a dissertation on the status of widows in harijan (dalit) communities. As he is currently conducting interviews in the nearby dalit colonies, I have invited myself to go around with him as a way of finally being able to interact with and gather stories from the dalit people. (I intend to do a post just on what it means to be a dalit soon, so that this word i keep using will have some meaning for you all).

There are plenty of others, but these are just a few of the folks who jump readily to mind, that have been making my experiences in India so far meaningful and memorable.