'uppar-nitche, aage-peetche'

up-down, front-back/ahead-behind

Another week. Delhi feels simultaneously close to 'home' as I, the globe nomad, could feel and also indisputably strange like planet Mars. The foundation for the remarkably easy parts of the transition back to madland is the wealth of relationships I have here. Funnily, I didn't realize how many great friends I have or how many interesting people also want to get to know me. I've started crossing paths with friends or acquaintances, which gives Delhi a 'homey, small-town' feeling that I'm enjoying before it gets too nosy. (Hindi tangent ... one of my favorite nicknames is 'nakoo', 'little nosey one'.. definitely good dog name.)

And Delhi is happening! Yes. I mean it, its actually a pretty chill place to be. Within one week, I went to an acro-yoga class, saw a contemporary dance recital on sexuality, watched a play, climbed up boulders in a forest reserve, attended a design festival, went night jogging through terrain laden with ancient monuments, and probably a few other things. This is all on top of going out to the Sewing New Futures center in Najafgarh and working freelance.

That being said - India is, unsurprisingly, blowing my mind. Not only in a good way.

Today I spent some time with a little girl, about 14 years old who was terribly beaten the night before for spilling some milk. Roshini's* (light) left eye was a blistering, taught black-and-blue ball, and her entire arm down to her hand was swollen to the extent that her bones are most likely fractured, if - that is - nothing is broken. Roshini greeted me with a smile and apologized for not being able to work well today because she couldn't hold a needle and thread.

When someone stands before you in this state, you at once see the person, and then its as if a haunted memory clouds your eyes. I suddenly imagined the actual scene of violent abuse that would have needed to take place in order for this little girl to become so badly wounded. We talked. Her father beats her, her husband beats her - yes, she is married and 14 years old - and her brothers sometimes hit her too. Mom? She left on account of the fact that 'Vo bhi mar khathee thee' .. she also used to 'eat beatings'.

The other night I had a horrendous dream, and all though it preceded this event, in many ways it foreshadowed the crux of this story. The main challenge I faced in the dream was coming against violence that at this point, in this capacity, I can do nothing about. What should we have done in this situation? Go to Roshini's house and explain kindly to her abusive family that they just simply cannot beat her if she takes 2 minutes extra to fetch something from the market? Should we go to the police who may do any number of useless or detrimental things (i.e. beat-up Roshini's dad who might then really assault her, or the police may ask for bribes to do nothing).

In any case, the light from this experience is truly feeling that SNF's work is purposeful. The scale is impactful. And the determination of the girls and women involved is inspiring. Tomorrow, I will make the two-hour journey back to the urban village on the outskirts of Delhi. I'll begin supporting the field staff to carry out monitoring and evaluation work and constructive, ownership-focused quality control.

Taking a sweet breath of appreciation for life, for my life, and potential,
I say, 'acche sapno dekho, sab log'.

sweet dreams, everybody.


*name has been changed

Starting with SNF

I am back in India, much more re-charged than I thought I could be. My work over the coming months will focus on quality management and tracking skill development. I am working with my friend, Kristin Braddock, and her inspiring social enterprise Sewing New Futures, and other volunteers, field managers, aunties, and didis. My aim is to set up a simple monitoring and evaluation system for SNF, and ensure that the field workers feel confident about updating and cataloging this information on their own. Thanks to Kristin for reaching out to me for this. Its so great to be working on a small-scale, deep-impact project for girls who would otherwise be forced into prostitution.

Here it goes.

Aastha, distance M&E officer; Kristin, entrepreneur/friend/boss/sunshine beam; me 

Field site in Najafgarh, outskirts of Delhi, India

OCI: The New Species

Stranger 1: are you an indian?
OCI: yes, a little.

Stranger 2: are you a hindu, muslim, or christian?
OCI: I .. I am anika.





I am part of the flock of a new international species that is confusing locals, government officials, employers, and bankers across India. The emerging group of 'Overseas Citizens of India' are not Indians, are Indians, or were Indians. We are Indians who are properly from India and just live abroad (overseas), or we have Indian heritage (that makes us 'Citizens'?).


Here are some of highlighted experiences of being part of the new breed of OCIs:

Infinite Visa: I have a 'lifelong' visa to India - sort of. Border control officials have managed to maintain a staunch business approach to the lifelong visa. The visa doesn't expire, but every 10 years one's passport does. So, when you are suddenly on your last month of legal international travel, you will also be scrambling to re-apply for your OCI card which conveniently never expires but obviously needs to be renewed with your passport.

No registration: Many visitors to India need to register with local officials. You can either be lucky and be an American, for whom registration is only obligatory after a few months (I think), or you get the really really short end of the stick and be from Pakistan, and need to visit the local police depot on a daily basis or risk expulsion from the country.

Work, Live, Play: The best thing for me is that I can work here. Americans who want to work in India need to get paid a commensurate rate to US salaries. This law is meant to protect Indians who are skilled and want top jobs, and is also meant to support Americans who will probably eventually go back to the states and don't want to be broke.

Some frustrating elements:

Banking: the majority of banks want to exploit this new class of Indians & sort-of-Indians who are bringing in remittances, savings, and taking out loans. But most banks have not really clarified the paperwork for OCI accounts, largely because the Indian Government has said that OCIs are classified as Persons of Indian Origins (PIOs), but have some different benefits. Its the square is a rectangle but a rectangle is not a square issue.

Needless to say, when I went to the local bank with the OCI-account forms found on their main website.. they had never seen them before, and it took 3 trips for them to acknowledge the credibility of their own paperwork.

Culture/heritage/identity: If you are Indian, you should know the culture, language and norms. Thats just the way it is. Since I don't, I am often embarrassed to admit that I am Indian, and have to go into this long and toppling explanation of my birth-place, schooling, mother's linguistic abilities, and so on.

But!
Above all, being of 'Indian origin' and having the ability to live and work here has been a tremendously fulfilling experience. I love going to Hindi classes and finally being able to speak with my grandmother. I love eating with my hands - soupy food or solid, wet or dry, spicy or.. ultra spicy. And I feel that I can understand my dad better by living in the world he came out of.

Going back to one's roots is a beautiful thing.

What are yours? Do you know? What do they mean to you?

keep exploring!

-----
Lots of love,
:ani

Greening Delhi, home-style.

The weeks and weekends have circled around each other too easily. 

I guess that's what happens when you work for ... 14 days straight. 

So this post will start with the weekend, the first one since being back in India.

PLANTS!

My mother is a gardener. She finds solace in soil. Her experience goes beyond 'getting her hands dirty' -  she can convince neighborhood kids, my brother's friends, and any of my previous boyfriends  to pitch in to her botanical missions (i.e. pruning high tree limbs, carrying insanely heavy bags of mulch, wheelbarrowing garden detritus).

This weekend I decided that I needed a floral make-over. Plants make me happy, remind me of my mom, and give me inspiration for art-making. I had been avoiding investing in the flat I am living in - not sure how long I'll be here and feeling challenged by lack of IKEA, the Home Depot, Bed Bath and Beyond, etc etc.

As I was walking back from a different adventure (graffiti walk post coming soon!), i saw a small semi-formal nursery (everything here is pretty semi-formal come to think of it). After a considerable amount of time speaking Hindi to the other non-native hindi speaking plant-sellers (from Hyderabad they spoke telegu), it became evident that 'indoor' and 'outdoor' are the best common denominators even for buying plants in Delhi.

I bought 6 plants, asked for one as a 'gift', and shocked them as i helped transfer the plastic-bag plants into clay pots (also free). The video below is of the lift i took from the nursery to home... on the plant delivery guy's cycle wagon.

New York - New Delhi - New Year.

i have arrived in delhi (!!) the weather was perfect when i landed mid-afternoon. i felt slow and spacious, easing into my re-location with a sense of awareness and welcoming. the taxi driver was kind enough to wait for me while i bought a coffee, although he did tell me just to get one later.

but home, didn't quite have that feeling. not to sound pretentious to 'western' ears, but our maid hasn't come in a few days and the place is DIRTY. Dust that has coated all the furniture and surfaces, and seemed immediately leave a cloudy, grindy, residue on my eyes, hair and fingertips. The place smelt distinctly like rotting cabbage. By all estimations the kitchen could have last been cleaned when V & I left. Three weeks ago.

I decided to try the washroom. My toilet doesn't flush. I have to turn on a water heater (called a 'geezer' by the locals) and wait for my hot shower. My hot bath. My hot... water coming out of a below-waste-tap that I need to crouch under because of how calcified the bottom of the 'bathing bucket' has become. 

Oh, I'm so post-flight discombobulated & dehydrated! Is the water from the cooler that one time was contaminated safe to drink now? How I miss tap water. Maybe NYC water is also splattered with too many chemicals for us to count, but at least it won't kill me right away.

These are definitely different experiences of home. What even was home like when I landed in New York? Did it really smell of coffee or did I make that up? Was everything really glowing, or was it just seeing my mom drenched in early morning sunlight on the yellow sofa?

I lit some incense, whispered blessings to welcome the new year, and got to unpacking. Girls gotta do what girls gotta do. Delhi will be challenging, but I'm up for it. 

I went on a 45 minute walk to clear my head, wincing from the smell of urine, suffocating just from breathing, and shaking my head solemnly at the silhouette of a man huddled around an incinerating pile of garbage in a vacant trash collection site.

When I'm here, the relentless push of human life keeps me moving forward. I am sticking to my New York City-isms and am focusing on not only doing more this year, but doing it better. I am determined to gain a deeper understanding of the realities of this place. To engage with it, learn from it, and grow into, through, and out of this experience. 

And more and more I see social, environmental, and political issues here are not simply seeping out of Indian soil, as if they are endemic qualities - this bargaining, laziness, ruthlessness and the usual criticism. While corruption is commonplace, people are entrapped in a complicated and aggressive colonial history and disembodied global economy.

Does that mean there is nothing to be done? History is over with - better accept it? The political economy is too massive to deal with? Men, women, and children will have to take whatever jobs they can if they want to survive?

No, I don't believe so. And there are too many great people and organizations working towards a more equal, healthy, democratic, and breathable India for me to shrug my shoulders. These challenges are not something I can fix, but I sure as hell can be a part of the dialogue and action that strive for change. Fo Sho.

Happy new year everyone.

Keep it up - your happiness, your work, your craft, art, sport, dance, food, you name it. 

Just do it, and do it better.

Invest in yourself with greater attentiveness and appreciation. 

You can at least thank yourself for that at the end of the day.

Calcutta day One!

We arrived in Calcutta around noon and although we were greeted by unseasonal rains, our spirits were in no way dampened. I was so excited to see my friend Shankhayan's Calcutta. Seeing some one's home, their friend-family-space-culture nexus, makes that person so much richer in teh viewer's eyes. Instant deep-end, all that history and old school laughter.

Jan, Violet, Shankhayan and I took a cinematic looking taxi all the way to Shey's parents place. I have come to not be shocked by the luxurious way that most Indian's treat their guests, but I was not prepared for the Bengali feast that was about to startle my senses.

Shankhayan's mother, a buzzing, flying, creative activist, who happens to be one of the sharpest and most stunning women I have met, also is an amazing cook. She prepared a 2-fish lunch, complete with all the essentials. Us 'n00bs' were instructed in the systematic eating order of Bengalis that goes from light to heavy, salty to sweet. First rice and sabzi (vegetables), then fish usually made with mustard oil that gives it a particularly royal bite, then meat if one has it (which doesn't include fish but does include crab..). Then, the sweets - not just dessert, but a home-made sugary daal, and a 'chutney' that is a watery soup made with fresh fruit pulp, special beganli olives, raisins, and some light spices. The dessert is a typically misthi dohi, a rich yogurt eaten from a terra-cotta pot.

It was absolutely impossible to stick to the food road map, our arms and hands were extensions of our taste buds, launching and diving excitedly at the lunch spread on the table. We messed up the order of things big time, and even destroyed some old principles about what goes together and what doesnt... mango mustard with eggs ? Hell yes!

soft sounds of living the high life: 

2 A/C train, Kolkata to Delhi, non-stop I might add? 

{a little girl whisphers to her mother in Panjabi and I understand, jingling of a train worker's key chain, Violet is crunching on an apple. We make completely random guesses about the apple's origins, calculative people making shots in the dark}

Jan, Violet, Me, Shankhayan's ma, Grandmother, and Father.

Amazing individuals, wonderful family, spectacular hosts.

the crisis

the crisis

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated. Britain, with an army to enforce her tyranny, has declared that she has a right (not only to TAX) but "to BIND us in ALL CASES WHATSOEVER" and if being bound in that manner, is not slavery, then is there not such a thing as slavery upon earth. Even the expression is impious; for so unlimited a power can belong only to God.

- thomas paine, 

december 23, 1776

If we can't sleep, at least we can learn.

(its the morning now, before my first day of work begins with SEWA Bharat. the darkness of a sleepness night has risen into the light of an exhausted morning. the first day, might be rough.

the good news is that i've had a nice few hours to catch up on some great and important learnings. the video above is a roundtable discussion by some top celebs in 1963 on 'the black question' - or was it - 'the white question' ? And on equality, justice, MLK, and the significance of the 200,000 strong march on Washington that took place on August 28 1963.

it was shared with me by a new current flatmate named Ashwin.

Which brings is on to goodnews number 2, that this year, hopefully with more sleep than tonight, i will be will be undoubtedly in the best place for me to live with Violet and Ashwin here in Delhi. just as Paine's quote painfully (ha!) captures the voice of people internally wretched by injustice, people here are also crippled by a legacy of suppression, hatred, and inequality. i feel blessed to live in a house with people who not only care deeply about this, but actually spend their lives trying to do something to work towards a better place.

these issues are not merely for trailing conversations and shrugging shoulders, this is a crisis.)

current time:      6:06 am
alarm time:        7:00am
____________________
sleep possible:   54 min