A Winter in India

Yesterday we went to a German Christmas Fair, near the German Embassy. In this blog so far we have mostly talked about the Indian parts of living here, but of course Delhi is a very international and cosmopolitan city. We had seen a notice about this Christmas Fair, so off we went, expecting something like the Nuremberg Toy Fair that we had seen in December of 1968. That was cold and snowy, this was hot and sunny (despite the fact that it was 4.7 ∞ C during the night; it warms up fast as soon as the sun comes up).

Some of the fair was German: we had bratwurst and beer for lunch. But the rest was a masala (mixture). Christmas songs blaring in English by people like Perry Como. Papier Mache Christmas ornaments from Kashmir. And lots of upper-end Indian crafts. Beautiful things and many chances to talk with the crafts people. One German woman we talked with had gone to university in France for textile design, but has been here in Delhi for 15 years now. She says that if you are doing anything in the textile business, India is the place to be. Such a variety of materials and experienced workers. From our short stay here, I would have to agree with her. So I thought I would put up some photos to support her point.

Yesterday was a day of high highs and low lows. We had breakfast with Rajiv Shankar on his way from Boston to Calcutta. It was so wonderful to see him, way too short a time for all the stories we needed to swap. He took us to a great place called Pickwicks at The Claridges hotel. Not often you can have fresh lychees and sweet lassi for breakfast.

No sooner were we back to the apartment than we got the bad news that the Abrahamsens, Lee, Bob and Karolyn, were stuck in the snowstorm in Boston and wouldn’t make it to Delhi. We were feeling pretty sorry for ourselves; had so looked forward to seeing each other. And we were feeling sorry for them, to go through all it takes to get here (numerous shots, visa applications, major planning)and then after all that, not be able to come. Drat.

This one reminds us that we are in a country where most people are vegetarian, and even those who eat meat (Moslems and others) do not eat pork. "English Piggery Products" turn out to be ham and sausage. Haven't tried any yet.

When we travel we always find the signage interesting. We must be sensitized to it because of Kate telling us about graphic design.

Here is a sign from Connaught Place in Delhi for an Ayurvedic doctor. You see a lot of ads for these in the newspapers and even on TV. Ayurveda is the ancient Hindu medicine that most people here grew up with, so most still know various home remedies. "It's our home medicine," the immunologist who we met in Lucknow told me, but it has not been standardized and so India is losing out on a global market that is being fashioned by Chinese traditional medicine instead. At both the Central Drug Research Institute and King George's Dental College they are doing research on the various herbal compounds, but seemingly without the use of any of the philosophical framework of Ayurveda. In other words, they test the herb, but for anti-inflammatory activity, not to see if it "increases heat" or "makes the black bile flow faster." Still, many tourists come here just for Ayurveda, looking for a more ancient panacea to ailments. As one of our Indian acquaintenances explained, "I go to the Western allopathic hospital for acute problems, pain and trauma; but I go to the family Ayurveda doctor for chronic problems, he will help me get my life back in balance so that my lifestyle creates health."

When we were in Lucknow, we ate lunch at a restaurant on the ninth floor of a hotel, where we had a great view of many things. What struck us the most was this bird’s eye view of merging traffic. Remember, people drive on the left here. So the bus and the white autorickshaw ahead of the bus, and the bicycle in front of the autorickshaw, and the scooters on the other side of the white car, have come down the left side of the road (the right side of the image) from the top of the photo and are merging across two lanes of traffic to get to the bottom left road. Notice they are actually too far over and at this point are in the oncoming lane of traffic, not in the left lane where they belong. Simultaneously, those like the white car, that are coming from the road at the bottom right need to get across in front of, or behind, or through the bus, to get to the left lanes headed to the top of the photo. No yield signs, no traffic light, no detectable pattern, yet somehow they all interweave and end up where they want to be!

Some of you have asked if we are actually doing any work. Thanks for asking. :)

We are working, although neither of us are doing what we had anticipated doing. In meeting with all of the Fulbrighters at the meeting in Chandigarh, I would say our experience is universal. None of us had enough information before we came to India to know what was really needed at our host institutions. We proposed a list of things. In my case many of the things I had offered to lecture on, they already cover. There seems to be a reluctance to say “No, what we really need is ….” So we are being “cultural ambassadors” (Fulbright’s term), and learning to read between the lines and decipher what would be useful. In the process, of course, we are learning a lot. A lot about culture and how science is changed by the culture it is embedded in. A lot about our own hidden assumptions about the way things “naturally” ought to work. A lot about how to teach students whose worldview is completely different so the usual analogies and metaphors are meaningless. I have given talks on science education. I also gave one to the Dental students on How to Plan and Give a Presentation. They are expected to give three but aren’t given any guidelines. Our Bates College Biology website and Seri Rudolph’s tips for poster presentations at Mt. David were helpful. Do you know I couldn’t find a single photo anywhere on the Bates website of any Bates students actually attending classes!

The purpose of our trip to Lucknow was to visit the Dental Hygiene School at King George’s Medical and Dental College. Dean Mahesh Verma of Maulana Azad Dental College and Hospital arranged for Pam and I to meet with Dr. Jaya Dixit who is the head of the Department of Periodontics.
We stayed at tyhe Guest House at the Central Drug Research Institute. The Central Drug Research Institute (photo on the right) is located in the former palace of the Nawab of Oudh. In 1856 the British East India Company removed the last Nawab, a particularly inept ruler, from Lucknow to Kolkata and paid him an annual stipend of £120,000. This bit of diplomacy put in motion the preparatory acts by Indian nationals that produced the Mutiny of 1857 against British colonialism. India calls this 5 month mutiny the First War of Independence. The Guest House does not look as though it has been repaired since the Nawab left.

On December 6 we flew from New Delhi to the city of Lucknow, the capital of the state of Uttar Pradesh. Arranging the travel was vastly different than it would have been in 1998. In 1998 we would have had to book our flight through a travel agent. In 2005 we went online and purchased e-tickets through a secure airline website.
Indian airports are still so inefficient. So many personnel employed to do one more redundant check, and make one more ballpoint mark on my ticket. If as many Indians flew as Americans the whole infrastructure of airtravel would grind to a halt. Corporate America would revolt and develop Microsoft Airlines, General Motors Airlines, etc. Despite all that our flight was just delightful, and we could see the Himalaya Mountains to the north throughout a good part of the flight. We had the afternoon free to wander and wander we did in old Lucknow. Pam and I walked up to The Residency.

This is a close-up of one of several dozen people made out of broken bangle bracelets. there were also hundreds of animals made of these.

There were hundreds of these, each with a "personality" created out of different bits of crockery.